LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Buil \..r^..ui. ; 
 
 Class 
 
 
WHAT'S NEXT 
 
 OR 
 
 Shall a Man Live Again ? 
 
 The great question answered by two hundred living Ameri- 
 cans of prominence in politics; in the army and navy; in 
 science, art, music and literature; in the mercantile world; 
 in the professions; and in the chairs of universities. An 
 expression from secular life only {the views of all clergy- 
 men being excluded.) 
 
 Compiled by 
 CLARA SPALDING ELLIS 
 
 (( There is in the minds of men a presage of a future exist- 
 ence, and it takes deepest root, and is most discoverable, in the 
 greatest and most ex(dj^Ls&uI^ J — Cicero. 
 
 BOSTON 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 The Gorham Press 
 1906 
 
Br?/? 
 
 £6 
 
 Copyright 1906 by Clara Spalding Ellis 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 1.7 
 
 IT 
 
 Printed at 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
 Boston, U. S. A. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ON a bright June day, when the birds made 
 "insolent music" around the house of 
 sorrow, the beautiful light of a noble 
 life went out. So sudden was the blow 
 that those who were left in the darkness 
 of bereavement were stunned by the 
 shock. Then came the gradual realization of 
 what it meant to go on with everyday duties, deprived 
 of the aid and comfort that had been so freely given 
 by the brave and loving heart now stilled. What had 
 become of that fine ego which served faithfully and 
 cheerily in its appointed place on earth, overcoming 
 many trials, adding year by year to strength and 
 breadth of character? 
 
 One among the band of stricken mourners "stood 
 where brook and river meet/' and she had lost a sister 
 and mother combined. In the gloom of sleepless 
 nights, alone and sobbing with the crushing burden 
 and the awful mystery, she cried aloud : "O sister, do 
 you live? Somewhere, somehow, do you still live? If 
 it be possible, come and tell me ! Just once, let me see 
 or hear that you are not dead !" 
 
 The gentle spirit did not come, no sound was heard, 
 and naught but the soothing touch of time assuaged 
 the grief of the questioner. Since then, others of the 
 family circle have crossed the Great Divide, and 
 friends near and dear; but there are no more queries. 
 The compiler of this volume does not know how, 
 when or where the blessed conviction took root in her 
 soul that those whom we call dead have but entered 
 upon a higher plane of existence than is possible in 
 this hampered earthly sphere. Certainly it was not 
 the result of any scientific research, nor of sectarian 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 teachings, nor does she longer demand the special 
 proof of a return of the departed to mortal scenes. 
 She simply believes there is a life beyond the grave, 
 and finds much consolation in the belief. 
 
 And so it has been a labor of love to prepare this 
 book, and send it forth with the hope that it will 
 strengthen the doubting, and comfort the sorrowing 
 who, like the young girl, are crying out in anguish to 
 the unseen spirits of their loved ones. 
 
 It would have been easy to gather the expressions 
 of noted ministers and bishops on the subject of im- 
 mortality — that has been done before. It would have 
 been a pleasant task to search the writings of the mas- 
 ters of literature in past years, and to extract there- 
 from the precious references to heaven and eternity — 
 that, too, has been done before. More difficult of 
 access, but seemingly more vital, of greater human 
 interest in the rush and whirl of the day, is the testi- 
 mony of persons outside the pulpit who are now liv- 
 ing in this broad land — men and women of renown 
 in widely differing pursuits, absorbed with earthly in- 
 terests, yet united in the common hope and belief of a 
 better life beyond so-called death. 
 
 Like the founder of the Ingersoll lectures at Har- 
 vard, I "wished the subject to be turned over in all 
 possible aspects, that results might ponderate harmon- 
 iously in the true direction. " I have tried to build 
 up, not to tear down. Some years ago, Gen. R. Brink- 
 erhoff wrote of critics : "If they have any faith in any- 
 thing which is not purely negative, they ought to let us 
 know what it is. Tell us what you do believe and not 
 what you do not. It is an outrage to weaken our mor- 
 al standards unless they can give us something better. 
 People who simply tear down and who have nothing 
 to substitute are enemies of mankind/' So* I have not 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 admitted controversy, although considerable pressure 
 has been brought to bear upon me to do so, and some 
 very distinguished names would have been added to 
 my symposium had I been willing to use arguments 
 against immortality. 
 
 That a volume discussing the question from both its 
 affirmative and negative sides would attract more at- 
 tention, and thus be more successful, as successes are 
 commonly regarded, I am aware; but the object near- 
 est my heart would not be accomplished. Arguments 
 pro and con, especially when thought out by master 
 minds, are confusing in their eloquence and often 
 leave the reader in a more unsettled condition than be- 
 fore. I do not wish to create a single doubt, to lessen 
 in the slightest degree the measure of anyone's faith. 
 Rather would I fan the spark of hope into the glow 
 of a steadfast trust which shall irradiate the reader's 
 pathway, however rugged, until that joyous hour 
 when we shall see "eye to eye and face to face." The 
 profound thinker, Prof. Goldwin Smith, indicates that 
 there is need of such encouragement, when he says in 
 the North American Review* for May, 1904: u No 
 small part of educated mankind has renounced or is 
 gradually renouncing the hope of a future life, and 
 acting on the belief that death ends all." 
 
 I return my appreciative thanks for the words of 
 approval that have come to me from many high 
 sources, and for the material that has been sent in re- 
 sponse to my request. The interest shown in my under- 
 taking has sustained and assisted me in my endeavors. 
 I have acknowledged each contribution by letter. The 
 thoughts in these pages are those of the strictly ortho- 
 dox and the liberal alike. The advocates of Christian 
 Science, New Thought and Theosophy give their testi- 
 mony. Statesmen, officers of the army and navy, jur- 
 ists, bankers, merchants, labor leaders and other busy, 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 practical men and women speak their word of convic- 
 tion. Scientists have not been silent : the mathemati- 
 cian and astronomer, the geologist, naturalist, physi- 
 cist, psychologist, philosopher, orientalist, etc., have 
 referred me to their learned disquisitions on the mo- 
 mentous subject. Only denial or the possibility of a 
 future existence has been debarred. 
 
 The trying days of an unusually severe winter and 
 spring were brightened by the notable letters and 
 poems that came to me daily through the mails. If 
 the readers of this volume are helped and benefited by 
 the uplifting thoughts contained in these contributions 
 and in the extracts I have been permitted to make 
 from valuable books and treatises, I shall feel re- 
 warded for my efforts. 
 
 As my final word, I quote this prophecy of Joaquin 
 Miller's, in "Songs of the Soul." 
 
 "God is not far; man is not far 
 
 From Heaven's porch, where paeans roll. 
 
 Man yet shall speak from star to star 
 In silent language of the soul ; 
 
 Yon star-strewn skies be but a town, 
 With angels passing up and down." 
 Montclair, N. J., Oct., 1905. C. S. E. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 LETTERS 
 
 Page 
 
 Abbe, Cleveland, a. m., PH.D., ll.d., S. b 36 
 
 Aitken, Robert Grant, a. m 70 
 
 Aycock, Gov. Charles B 71 
 
 Baird, Henry Carey 37 
 
 Baker, James H., ll.d 40 
 
 Ball, Thomas . 52 
 
 Bartch, Judge George W 48 
 
 Bascom, John, ll.d , 22 
 
 Beach, Mrs. H. H. A 90 
 
 Beach, Maj. W. M 91 
 
 Berry, U. S. Senator James H . 76 
 
 Bottome, Mrs. Margaret 61 
 
 Bowers, Henry F 85 
 
 Browne, Wm. Hand, m. d 17 
 
 Bryan, William J., a. m 19 
 
 Buck, Dudley , . 42 
 
 Butterworth, Hezekiah 52 
 
 Carleton, Will, a. m., litt. d 87 
 
 Catt, Mrs. Carrie Chapman . 56 
 
 Chaffee, Lieut. Gen. Adna R 20 
 
 Chambers, Robert W 32 
 
 Chandler, Albert B \ 31 
 
 Chatterton, Gov. F 67 
 
 Cleveland, Miss Matae B 81 
 
 Cockrell, U. S. Senator F. M 72 
 
 Collins, William H., b. s., a. m 31 
 
 Comstock, Anthony 71 
 
 Cook, Albert S., m. a., l. h. d., ph.d 27 
 
 Cox, Palmer 69 
 
 Creighton, James E., a«. b., ph.d 74 
 
 Crosby, Ernest Howard 63 
 
 Crosman, Miss Henrietta 91 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Dana, Richard Henry 57 
 
 Davis, Nathan S., m. d., a. m., ll.d 68 
 
 Davis, Noah K., a. m., ph.d., ll.d 30 
 
 Davis, Mrs. V. Jefferson 36 
 
 Debs, Eugene V 79 
 
 Dexter, Henry 52 
 
 Diaz, Mrs. Abby Morton 72 
 
 Dickie, George W 33 
 
 Dole, Nathan Haskell 53 
 
 Du Bois, W. E. B,. a. m., ph.d 46 
 
 Earle, Mrs. Alice Morse 76 
 
 Edmunds, Ex-Senator George F 20 
 
 Ellis, Edward S., a. m 58 
 
 Elwell, Frank E 87 
 
 Farquhar, Rear- Admiral Norman von H 65 
 
 Fetterolf, Adam H., a. m., ph.d., ll.d 79 
 
 Foltz, Mrs. Clara S 44 
 
 Foote, Gen. Lucius H 47 
 
 Foster, John Watson, ll.d 43 
 
 Frye, U. S. Senator William P., ll.d 43 
 
 Gallaudet, Edward M., ph.d., ll.d 58 
 
 Garrett, Philip C 77 
 
 Gayley, Charles M., litt. d., ll.d 73 
 
 Grant, U. S., Jr 37 
 
 Halford, E. W 40 
 
 Harper, William R., ph.d., ll.d 91 
 
 Havemeyer, John C 39 
 
 Hayne, William Hamilton 60 
 
 Hendrix, Joseph C 78 
 
 Herreid, Gov. Charles N 88 
 
 Higginson, Thomas W 24 
 
 Howard, Gen. O. 27 
 
 Hutton, Laurence, a. m 60 
 
 Jones, Richard Watson, a. m., ph.d 76 
 
 Ketchum, Alex. P., m. a 80 
 
 King, Gen. Charles 20 
 
 King, Henry Churchill, a. m., d. d 54 
 
 Kirkpatrick, William J 82 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Landon, Melville D. ("Eli Perkins"), a. m 82 
 
 Lanman, Charles R., PH.D., ll.d 23 
 
 Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh 45 
 
 Lemmon, John G 88 
 
 Lemmon, Sara A. P 89 
 
 Lippincott, Mrs. Sara R. ("Grace Greenwood") 64 
 
 Lockwood, Thomas D 43 
 
 Lowe, Rear-Admiral John 64 
 
 McCullough, Gov. John G 60 
 
 McKelway, St. Clair, a. m., ll.d., l. h. d., d. c. l. . 75 
 
 McLaurin, U. S. Senator Andrew 67 
 
 McLean, Mrs. Donald 89 
 
 McWhorter, Judge Henry C 65 
 
 Major, Charles ("Edwin Caskoden") 38 
 
 Metcalf, Henry B 54 
 
 Mitchell, John 84 
 
 Mitchell, U. S. Senator John H 26 
 
 Montague, Gov. Andrew J., b. l 70 
 
 Moorehead, Warren K., m. a 81 
 
 Morris, Mrs. Susan Cotton 84 
 
 Newburger, Morris 28 
 
 Oswald, Felix L., a. m., m. d 74 
 
 Otero, Gov. Miguel A 55 
 
 Page, Thomas Nelson, litt. d 41 
 
 Paine, Robert Treat, a. m 56 
 
 Parry, David M 18 
 
 Parsons, Charles B 83 
 
 Peabody, Gov. James H 57 
 
 Peaslee, John B., a. m., ph.d 89 
 
 Peebles, James M., m. d., a. m 86 
 
 Pellew, Henry E., m. a 61 
 
 Philips, U. S. Judge J. F., ll.d 25 
 
 Reeves, Francis B 49 
 
 Rexford, Eben E 80 
 
 Rice, Mrs. Alice Hegan 66 
 
 Riis, Jacob A 82 
 
 Rolfe, William J., a. m., litt. d 24 
 
 Sanborn, Miss Kate 87 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Sangster, Mrs. Margaret E 45 
 
 Schley, Rear-Admiral Winfield S 38 
 
 See, Thomas J. J., a. m., ph.d 32 
 
 Severance, Mrs. Caroline M 62 
 
 Smith, T. Berry, a. m 41 
 
 Sparhawk, Miss Frances C 66 
 
 Speed, John Gilmer, a. m., c. e 47 
 
 Stoddard, Charles Warren, l. h. d., ph.d 30 
 
 Sutherland, Mrs. Evelyn Greenleaf 78 
 
 Swift, Lewis, PH.D., F. R. A. S 44 
 
 Taylor, Mrs. Lodusky 54 
 
 Todd, Mrs. Mabel Loomis 28 
 
 Toole, Gov. Joseph K 90 
 
 Wanamaker, John 32 
 
 White, Gov. Albert B 83 
 
 Wilbour, Mrs. Charlotte B 21 
 
 Winchell, Newton H 67 
 
 Winslow, Miss Helen M 47 
 
 PART II 
 
 EXTRACTS 
 
 Adler, Felix, ph.d., Immortality 181 
 
 Alden, Henry Mills, l. h. d. The Mystical Vision. . 103 
 
 Alden, Henry Mills, l. h. d. Another World 106 
 
 Angell, George T. How to Teach Immortality 219 
 
 Bacheller, Irving, a. m. Uncle Eb's Idea of Heaven. . . 201 
 Baldwin, J. Mark, a. m., ph.d., ll.d. Theism and Im- 
 mortality 126 
 
 Brinkerhoff, Gen. Roeliff. The Resurrection of Christ 170 
 
 Carus, Paul, ph.d. The Communism of Soul-Life. . . 239 
 Freeman, Mrs. Mary E. Wilkins. A Bit from "Jane 
 
 Field" 101 
 
 Harris, William T, a. m., ph.d., ll.d. Immortality 
 
 of the Individual 230 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Hyslop, James H., ph.d. Immortality and Psychical 
 
 Research 187 
 
 J James, William, m. d., ll.d., ph.d., litt. d. Human 
 
 Immortality 153 
 
 Jones, Rufus M., a. m., litt. d. The Crown of Life. 113 
 Keen, William W., m. d., ll.d. The Cheerfulness of 
 
 Death 101 
 
 Kellogg, John H., m. d. The Soul of Man 119 
 
 Lloyd, Alfred H., a. m., ph.d. Evolution and Immor- 
 tality 135 
 
 Mabie, Hamilton W., a. m., l. h. d., ll.b., ll.d. The 
 
 Incident of Death 95 
 
 Martin, Daniel S., a. m., ph.d. Christian Evolutionism 202 
 Martin, Daniel S., A. M., ph.d. Scientific Conceptions 
 
 of a Spiritual World 207 
 
 Patterson, Charles Brodie. Immortality 211 
 
 Peattie, Mrs. Elia W. Confidence in God 132 
 
 Peebles, James M., m. d>, a. m. The Mysteries of Life 183 
 Remsen, Ira, m. d., ph.d., ll.d. Science and Immortality 125 
 v Royce, Josiah, ph.d., ll.d. The Conception of Immor- 
 tality 163 
 
 Stuart, Mrs. Ruth McEnery 169 
 
 Trine, Ralph Waldo, a. m. Building for Eternity. . . 138 
 
 Trowbridge, J. T, a. m. Spirit-Discerning Powers. . . 193 
 
 Underwood, Benj. F. A Lay Funeral Sermon 148 
 
 Wallace, Gen. Lew. The Soul 116 
 
 Weir, John F., a. m. We Shall Be Like Him 227 
 
 Wheeler, Benj. Ide, a. m., ph.d., ll.d. Dionysos and 
 
 Immortality 158 
 
 Whiting, Miss Lilian. From Inmost Dreamland .... 142 
 
 Wilder, Alexander, m. d. Life Eternal 219 
 
 Wood, Henry. The Unseen Realm 194 
 
 Wood, Henry. A Corrected Standpoint in Psychical 
 
 Research 199 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART III 
 
 POEMS 
 
 Page 
 
 Abbey, Henry. Faith's Vista 251 
 
 Adams, Oscar Fay. Dear Heart, Believe 270 
 
 Alden, Mrs. Cynthia Westover. Just a Dewdrop. . . . 270 
 Aldrich, Thos. Bailey, a. m., l. h. d. I Vex me not 
 
 with Brooding on the Years 258 
 
 Bates, Arlo, a. m., litt. d. Oh, Egotism of Agony. . . 267 
 Bates, Charlotte Fiske (Mme. Roge). Immortal 
 
 Through Mortality 272 
 
 Bates, Charlotte Fiske (Mme. Roge). In Good Time. 273 
 Bloede, Miss Gertrude ("Stuart Sterne ,, ). Soul, 
 
 Wherefore Fret Thee 267 
 
 Bonney, Charles C, ll.d. Henry Clay 284 
 
 Bonney, Charles C, ll.d. Death is no Longer Con- 
 queror 286 
 
 Butterworth, Hezekiah. O Soul of Mine 249 
 
 Carman, Wm. Bliss. The Sceptic 267 
 
 Cheney, John Vance. By and By 274 
 
 Coolbrith, Miss Ina D. A Last Word 280 
 
 Coolbrith, Miss Ina D. When the Spirit Breaks Away 280 
 Dodge, Mrs. Mary Mapes. The Two Mysteries. ... 281 
 Gilder, Richard Watson, a. m., ll.d., l. h. d. Call Me 
 
 Not Dead 258 
 
 King, Gen. Horatio C, ll.d. Aspiration 283 
 
 King, Gen. Horatio C, ll.d. Our Heavenly Home. . 283 
 Lippincott, Mrs. Sara R. ("Grace Greenwood"). Two 
 
 Christmas Times 259 
 
 Litchfield, Miss Grace Denio. To the Cicada Septem- 
 
 decim 253 
 
 Markham, Edwin. A Bargain 262 
 
 Markham, Edwin. One Life, One Law 262 
 
 Miller, C. H. ("Joaquin Miller ,, ). Even So 254 
 
 Miller, Mrs. Emily Huntington, a. m. After the Feast 257 
 Mitchell, S. Weir, m. d., ll.d. Of One Who Seemed 
 
 to Have Failed 264 
 
 Moulton, Mrs. Louise Chandler. My Father's House . 256 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Partridge, Wm. Ordway. Sowing to the Spirit 271 
 
 Proctor, Miss Edna Dean. Heaven, O Lord, I Cannot 
 
 Lose 268 
 
 Richardson, Charles F., A. M., PH.D. After Death. . . . 252 
 Riley, James Whitcomb, A. M., litt. d. Out of the 
 
 Hitherwhere Into the Yon 286 
 
 Robertson, Louis A. Selection from "Beyond the Re- 
 quiems" 266 
 
 Rohlfs, Mrs. Anna Katharine Green, b. a. Rosa, Dying 276 
 
 Scollard, Clinton. Lift Up Thine Eyes 277 
 
 Scollard, Clinton. What Was Shall Be 278 
 
 Sickels, David Banks. Reincarnation 278 
 
 Smith, Thomas Berry, a. m. Not Dead — Not Lost — 
 
 Not Far 287 
 
 Taylor, Edward Robeson. Selections from "Into the 
 
 Light" 263 
 
 Ward, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Afterward 252 
 
 Whiting, Miss Lilian. Gates of Eden 275 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 THE following publishers have kindly permitted 
 extracts to be made from the books mentioned, 
 to which the compiler was referred by the auth- 
 ors for their views on the subject of immortality. 
 D. Appleton & Co. "The Beleagured 
 Forest," by Elia W. Peattie; "Complete 
 Poems/' by Henry Abbey. 
 
 The Century Co. "Collected Poems," by Dr. S. Weir 
 Mitchell. 
 
 Thos. Y. Crowell & Co. "Character Building Thought 
 Power," and "In Tune With the Infinite," by Ralph Waldo 
 Trine. 
 
 Dodd, Mead & Co. "The Life of the Spirit," by Ham- 
 ilton Wright Mabie. 
 
 Geo. H. Ellis Co. "Science and Immortality," edited 
 by Samuel J. Barrows. 
 
 Harper & Bros. "A Golden Wedding and Other Tales," 
 by Ruth McEnery Stuart; "A Study of Death," by Henry 
 Mills Alden; "Ben Hur," by Gen. Lew Wallace; "Eben 
 Holden," by Irving Bacheller. 
 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co. "The Conception of Im- 
 mortality," by Josiah Royce; "Dionysos and Immortality," 
 by Benj. Ide Wheeler; "Human Destiny in the Light of 
 Revelation," by John F. Weir; "Human Immortality," by 
 William James; "The Interpretation of Nature," by N. S. 
 Shaler; "Later Lyrics," by Thos. Bailey Aldrich; "My 
 Own Story," by J. T. Trowbridge; "Poems," by Edna 
 Dean Proctor; "Songs of the Silent World," by E. S. 
 Phelps Ward. 
 
 Lee & Shepard. "God's Image in Man," and "Studies 
 in the Thought World," by Henry Wood. 
 
 Little, Brown & Co. "After her Death," and "From 
 Dreamland Sent," by Lilian Whiting; "At the Wind's 
 Will," by Louise Chandler Moulton. 
 
 McClure, Phillips & Co. "Life and Destiny," by 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 Felix Adler; "Lincoln and Other Poems," and "The Man 
 With the Hoe and Other Poems," by Edwin Markham. 
 
 The other volumes quoted were copyrighted by their 
 authors, or are out of print. 
 
 Courtesies from the Atlantic Monthly, Independent, Out- 
 look, and other publications credited in parts II and III, 
 are hereby acknowledged. 
 
"The wise grieve not for the departed, nor for those 
 
 who yet survive, 
 Ne J er was the time when I was not, nor thou, nor 
 
 yonder chiefs, and ne } er 
 Shall be the time when all of us shall be not; as the 
 
 embodied soul 
 In this corporeal frame moves swiftly on through 
 
 boyhood, youth, and age, 
 So will it pass through other forms hereafter — be not 
 
 grieved thereat, 
 The man whom pain and pleasure, heat and cold 
 
 affect not, he is fit 
 For immortality ; whatever is not cannot be, whatever 
 
 is 
 Can never cease to be. Know this — the Being that 
 
 spread this universe 
 Is indestructible. Who can destroy the Indestructible? 
 These bodies that inclose the everlasting soul, inscrut- 
 able, 
 Immortal, have an end; but he who thinks the soul 
 
 can be destroyed, 
 And he who deems it a destroyer, are alike mistaken; 
 
 it 
 Kills not, and is not killed; it is not born, nor doth it 
 
 ever die; 
 It has no past nor future — unproduced, unchanging, 
 
 infinite; he 
 Who knows it fixed, unborn, imperishable, indis- 
 soluble, 
 How can that man destroy another, or extinguish 
 
 aught below? 
 As men abandon old and threadbare clothes to put on 
 
 others new, 
 
So casts the embodied soul its worn-out frame to enter 
 other forms. 
 
 No dart can pierce it; flame cannot consume it, water 
 wet it not, 
 
 Nor scorching breezes dry it — indestructible, incap- 
 able 
 
 Of heat or moisture or aridity, eternal, all-pervading, 
 
 Steadfast, immovable, perpetual, yet imperceptible, 
 
 Incomprehensible, unfading, deathless, unimagin- 
 able/' 
 
 — From the Bhagav ad-Git a, as given in {t Hindoo 
 Wisdom! } 
 
PART I 
 
 LETTERS 
 
William Hand Browne, M. D., Professor of English 
 Literature, Johns Hopkins University. Janu- 
 ary 20, IOQf. 
 
 In such a question as you propound, I think I can 
 get no nearer a positive demonstration than an inabil- 
 ity to conceive the contrary. 
 
 i. I am compelled to recognize in the universe: 
 ( i ) Myself — a thinking spirit possessed of will, and 
 (2) something which is not — me, which 1 call Matter. 
 (Whether conceived in the Berkeleian sense or not, 
 makes no difference — I must acknowledge its exist- 
 ence.) 
 
 Now I think that to physicists the annihilation of 
 matter is inconceivable. So, a fortiori, to me the an- 
 nihilation of spirit is inconceivable. How Being can 
 become not — Being, is something that I cannot con- 
 ceive. 
 
 2. I must recognize in this universe the work of an 
 intelligent Being, even though his nature and purposes 
 are unfathomable by me. I must recognize some pur- 
 pose in my life; and if so, that purpose must be an in- 
 finitesimal part of His purpose. Now, let me die when 
 I will, I die with my purpose only partially fulfilled — 
 there must remain more to be done that no one but 
 myself could do. Therefore, if my purpose is unac- 
 complished, part of His purpose must remain unac- 
 complished, and this I cannot conceive. 
 
 So I am driven to the conclusion that after this bod- 
 ily life is over, I shall still, under other conditions 
 (now unknown to me) continue working out His pur- 
 pose. 
 
 (17) 
 
1 8 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 For the contrary opinion would involve the belief 
 that He annihilates me, solely to create another spirit 
 to take up my unfinished life. This, as the act of a 
 supreme Intelligent Being, I cannot conceive. 
 
 Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Mr. David M. Parry, President National Association 
 of Manufacturers of the United States. Febru- 
 ary ig } IQ04. 
 
 I am of the opinion that the immortality of the 
 spirit will have been proven scientifically inside of a 
 few years. Camille Flammarion, the eminent French 
 astronomer, has endeavored to demonstrate by scien- 
 tific investigation the fact that there is existence be- 
 yond death. In his book called "The Unknown," 
 Flammarion has come very near establishing satisfac- 
 tory conclusions. The work he has begun will be car- 
 ried on by others, and to my mind there is little doubt 
 but that final success will be achieved. 
 
 We are moving very fast in the realm of scientific 
 and psychological investigation, and it would be a 
 brave man who would to-day take the position that 
 scientifically we may not be able to demonstrate the ex- 
 istence of a spirit essence which has lived and will live 
 for all time. If there is a soul it is composed of ma- 
 terial substance, as that which does not have material- 
 ity cannot exist. This materiality may be of a form 
 which to-day we cannot detect by known methods. 
 But that does not preclude the hope that some day we 
 shall have a greater knowledge as to the character of 
 the Unseen World. 
 
 I cannot say that my ideas of the future state are 
 based entirely upon the familiar conception offered us 
 from Biblical sources, though I have been a lifelong 
 church member and have freely subscribed to the 
 tenets of the Christian religion. I think our concep- 
 
AN LIVE AGAIN 19 
 
 tions of the future life are to-day very vague and en- 
 tirely incapable of definition. Rest assured, however, 
 that if there is to be a prolongation of human memory 
 or Ego in the future world, that the same will be the 
 result of natural law over which we do not have and 
 can never have any control. 
 Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 William Jennings Bryan, A. M., Editor, Lawyer and 
 Politician. March 24, igo^. 
 
 If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the 
 cold and pulseless heart of the buried acorn, and make 
 it to burst forth from its prison walls, will He leave 
 neglected in the earth the soul of man, who was made 
 in the image of his Creator? If He stoops to give 
 to the rosebush, whose withered blossoms float 
 upon the breeze, the sweet assurance of another 
 springtime, will He withhold the words of hope from 
 the sons of men when the frosts of winter come? If 
 Matter, mute and inanimate, though changed by the 
 forces of Nature into a multitude of forms, can never 
 die, will the imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation 
 after it has paid a brief visit, like a royal guest, to this 
 tenement of clay? 
 
 Rather let us believe that He who, in his apparent 
 prodigality, wastes not the raindrop, the blade of 
 grass, or the evening's sighing zephyr, but makes 
 them all to carry out His eternal plans, has given im- 
 mortality to the mortal, and gathered to Himself the 
 spirits of our friends. Instead of mourning, let us look 
 up and address our departed in the words of the poet: 
 
 u Thy day has come, not gone; 
 Thy sun has risen, not set; 
 Thy life is now beyond 
 The reach of death or change, 
 
20 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Not ended — but begun. 
 
 O, noble soul! O, gentle heart! Hail, and farewell." 
 Lincoln, Neb. 
 
 Hon. George F. Edmunds, Lawyer and Ex-United 
 States Senator from Vermont. January 28, IQ04. 
 
 It is sufficient to say that every one who has taken 
 an oath to support the Constitution of the United 
 States, or of his own State, thereby declares himself to 
 believe in God and a future existence. 
 
 Aiken, S. C. 
 
 Lieut. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, Chief of the United 
 States Army. January 20, IQ04. 
 
 I am fully convinced that there is a future state, 
 and that the character of that state is dependent in 
 each case upon the life and deeds of the individual 
 while here on earth. That there is a heaven with 
 streets of gold, or a hell flaming with fire and brim- 
 stone, no one believes, as such descriptions are con- 
 ceded, I think, to be merely figurative. But I am sat- 
 isfied, however, that a reward does exist for the faith- 
 ful, the just and the charitable, in some way adapted 
 to the needs of the particular soul. Of one thing I 
 am sure, the future should hold no terror for the man 
 who in this life centers his efforts upon the develop- 
 ment of a noble, unselfish character for himself, and 
 the uplifting of those whom an all-wise Providence 
 has placed within the circle of his influence. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Brig. Gen. Charles King, President National Society 
 
 Army of the Philippines. February 12, IQ04. 
 
 I have implicit faith in the existence of a Supreme 
 
 Being, (This is Lincoln's birthday, and his faith was 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 21 
 
 sublime), also some vague notions, and some hope of 
 the life beyond the River. 
 
 Milwaukee, Wis. 
 
 Mrs. Charlotte B. Wilbour, President of Sorosis. 
 April 22, 1 go 4. 
 
 The predictive indications of a greater future are in 
 our souls : Our everlasting insatiety, our hopes that no 
 visible sphere can contain, our aspirations that make a 
 platform for our feet of the highest Cape of Heaven, 
 our loves that yearn out to the blank that hides our 
 loved ones, and the thousand glimpses of a greatness, 
 truth, beauty and holiness that only eternity could be- 
 gin to realize. 
 
 When a living faith opens the door into that other 
 world, and shows us whither went all those vague 
 yearnings and bright hopes and insatiable desires, we 
 have a directing element to give coherence to scattered 
 powers, a field for spiritual vigor, an aim for all that 
 has before run to waste. Our lives will grow larger 
 and more beautiful for this faith in proportion as the 
 faith is vital and genuine. If we believe but the naked 
 truth that we are individually and actually in life's 
 hereafter when death has completed the dissolution of 
 the marriage of soul and body, it must bear with it 
 such inevitable consequences in every mind as to make 
 a visible mark on the life it leads. The hand grows 
 vigorous to fulfill its duty on earth, for a worthy pur- 
 pose ; and, better than this, the soul puts forth to 
 bloom and perfect fruitage buds of prescient life that 
 blighting doubt could never suggest. 
 
 New York City. 
 
22 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 John Bascom, D. D. } LL.D., Educator. January 21 , 
 1904. 
 
 ( 1 ) . Immortality is necessary to the full develop- 
 ment of our rational powers. Ethical activity, the 
 highest activity, can secure no sufficient field, no ade- 
 quate expression, without immortality. The seed and 
 the bud no more contain a promise of growth than do 
 the germinant powers of the spirit this faith in life. 
 They indeed find development in society, and so so- 
 ciety struggles to give them a kind of immortality, an 
 honor not measured by years. 
 
 The fact that the physical world has nothing to 
 say in behalf of immortality is of little moment. It 
 is not the soil of that immortality. 
 
 (2). This belief is confirmed by the many minds, 
 and diverse ways in diverse minds, in which it has 
 sprung up. It is indigenous to human thought and 
 experience. It is hidden as a vital energy in the very 
 soul of man. 
 
 (3 ) . The soundness of this bold stroke of thought 
 is confirmed to us by the breadth of our reasoning in 
 other directions. We push our conceptions far out in- 
 to space, as in the calculation of an eclipse, and the 
 facts respond to them. May we not, with equal cour- 
 age, thrust our ethical judgments into the measureless 
 reaches of time ? 
 
 (4). Our belief in evolution gives confirmation to 
 our hope. Evolution is the ruling idea of the world, 
 its working plan, its spiritual chart. On the physical 
 side this evolution approaches a limit. Man is the 
 paragon of animals. The only truly potent extension 
 which remains to us is spiritual. This secured, and 
 the reaction of the spiritual world on the physical 
 world will be a new creation. Ideas will become forces 
 and the unseen will pour out upon us unthought-of 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 23 
 
 wealth. Immortality is the word that the world has 
 long been getting ready to utter. 
 
 (5). The effect of this faith on man goes far to 
 confirm it. It greatly extends his thoughts and en- 
 nobles his impulses. The belief is congruous to the 
 powers of man, and congruity is a law of the world. 
 
 (6). The depressing and debasing effect of unbe- 
 lief on the individual and on society is an effective 
 counter proof. Mortality carries a deathlike pallor 
 to the cheek and faintness to the heart of man. It is 
 at war with life. 
 
 ( 8 ) . If we are theists we can hardly believe in the 
 goodness of God, or find scope for His love, otherwise 
 than in connection with immortality. It is the one 
 idea which brings all things into the light. 
 
 Williamstown, Mass. 
 
 Charles R. Lanman, Ph.D., LL.D., Orientalist, Pro 
 f ess or of Sanskrit, Harvard University. March 
 23 1904. 
 The Outlook published several years ago a series 
 of six articles entitled, "The Message of the World's 
 Religions." These were reprinted in a little book 
 published by Longmans, Green and Co., 1898. In it 
 you will find a little article by me upon Brahmanism 
 which may perhaps interest you in this connection. I 
 send you herewith an address which I delivered as 
 President of the Philological Association. Several 
 years ago President Eliot asked me to give the Inger- 
 soll Lecture on Immortality, but by reason of the 
 stress of other work I was unable to do so. I hope I 
 shall be able to ere long. Although these essays do 
 not speak particularly perhaps about immortality,* 
 
 *The pamphlet "Beginnings of Hindu Pantheism," and 
 the. article on Brahmanism in "The Message of the World's 
 
24 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 nevertheless I may say, to use the words of your 
 letter, that not only is room kept in my heart for 
 spiritual thoughts and faith, but also that spiritual 
 thoughts and the spiritual life seem to me the great- 
 est and best of all the objects of human existence. I 
 am a very happy man, and that is the source of my 
 greatest happiness. 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Thomas W entworth Higginson, A. M., LL.D., Au- 
 thor. February 2, 1904. 
 
 It is impossible for me to answer your question in 
 full. I am happy to say that I have always retained 
 a strong instinctive faith in personal immortality, al- 
 though all the ideas included under the general name 
 of resurrection of the body are to me utterly distaste- 
 ful and incredible. These ideas are, however, un- 
 doubtedly what is called "scriptural," but as I was 
 never brought up to believe in the literal infallibility 
 of the Jewish or Christian Scriptures, that objection is 
 not one which would trouble me. My belief in im- 
 mortality is based essentially on human affection, and 
 on the wonderful attributes of the human soul; these 
 being so marvellous as to make it absolutely incredible 
 that the soul should perish with the body. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 William J. Rolfe, A. M. y Litt. D., Author and 
 Shakespearean Scholar. February 8, 1904. 
 That this mortal life is to end with what we call 
 
 Religions," have been read by the compiler with much inter- 
 est, but since they contain no personal views of the author 
 on the subject of immortality, no extracts have been taken 
 from them for this volume. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 25 
 
 death is to me absolutely inconceivable. At my age 
 (I am in my seventy-seventh year) "every third 
 thought," as Prospero says, must be u my grave"; but 
 I believe that the grave is only the transition to anoth- 
 er life of conscious existence. What the conditions of 
 that new life will be, we can no more foresee now 
 than the unborn infant can know those of the existence 
 upon which it is to enter at birth; but I believe that it 
 will be a larger, richer life — one of growth and pro- 
 gress — a continuation of the development which has 
 been the law of life while the soul wears ''this muddy 
 vesture of decay." 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 John F. Philips, LL.D., United States District Judge, 
 Western District of Missouri. February 13, 
 
 I entertain faith in an existence beyond the grave. 
 This, naturally enough, may have its primary root in 
 the fact of my having been brought up "under the 
 drippings of the sanctuary," by parents who implicitly 
 believed in the resurrection from the dead, and in a 
 heaven and a hell. 
 
 Equally natural is it that the matured and culti- 
 vated mind, especially that of the lawyer and judge, 
 should be conducted to independent and earnest medi- 
 tation and investigation touching so stupendous a 
 question. The centrifugal forces of speculation and 
 mere philosophy pull hard, at times, upon the centri- 
 petal power of simple faith; so that in the varying 
 moods of the mind I sometimes have to say : I do not 
 know. But all the while there is the whispering of 
 u the still, small voice" of conscience, telling that there 
 is something within the spirit that is immortal. Aside 
 from the instinctive abhorrence of annihilation, there 
 is the implantation of a resistless aspiration for a 
 
26 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 higher and perpetual existence; the constant yearning 
 for reunion with the loved ones gone before; utterly 
 irreconcilable with the idea that at the moment of 
 physical dissolution this spiritual essence shall vanish 
 into u airy nothingness." 
 
 Then when we pass from the abstract to the con- 
 crete, we know that matter is indestructible, and 
 however changed in form it is transformed again. 
 Why then should the human mind and spirit, which 
 so dominate the animal kingdom and so subject matter 
 to their uses, have no transformation, or resurrection ? 
 When all these things sweep across the mind, I can 
 but exclaim: "I believe; Lord, help my unbelief." 
 
 Kansas City, Mo. 
 
 Hon. John H. Mitchell, United States Senator from 
 Oregon. February 20, 1904* 
 
 Yes, I do believe beyond the possibility of a doubt 
 that there is an existence beyond the grave. I not only 
 believe that, but I am firm in the conviction that our 
 loved ones who have gone from this to another world 
 can, under certain conditions, come back and commun- 
 icate with us in this present life ; of this act I have had 
 evidence of the most convincing character. In my 
 earlier years I took it for granted, without knowing 
 anything about it, that there was an existence beyond 
 the grave. But now I do not act merely on faith, but 
 on evidence that to me is entirely satisfactory. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 *Died Dec. 8, 1905. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 27 
 
 Albert S. Cook, M.S., M. A., L. H. D., Ph.D., Pro- 
 fessor of English Language and Literature, Yale 
 University. February 22, 1904. 
 
 On the subject of a future state I entertain no 
 doubts whatever; and were I to entertain them, should 
 not consider the present life worth living, since it de- 
 rives its significance and value only from its relation 
 to that which lies beyond the grave. In fact, I fully 
 agree with the writer of the Spectator paper No. 186: 
 "The prospect of a future state is the secret comfort 
 and refreshment of my soul; it is that which makes 
 nature look gay about me ; it doubles all my pleasures, 
 and supports me under all my afflictions. I can look 
 at disappointments and misfortunes, pain and sick- 
 ness, death itself, and, what is worse than death, the 
 loss of those who are dearest to me, with indifference, 
 so long as I keep in view the pleasures of eternity, and 
 the state of being in which there will be no fears nor 
 misapprehensions, pains nor sorrows, sickness nor sep- 
 aration." 
 
 I may add that I rest my hopes of immortality on 
 the power and promises of Jesus Christ, as revealed in 
 The Gospels. 
 
 New Haven, Conn. 
 
 Maj.-Gen. Oliver Otis Howard, United States Army. 
 February 3, IQ04. 
 During my life of over seventy years, I do not re- 
 member a time when I have doubted the truth of the 
 averment of "existence beyond the grave." The 
 Scriptures of course avow it in one form or another 
 from the beginning of Genesis to the close of Revela- 
 tion. Outside of all "revelations," the consensus of 
 opinion follows the soul-consciousness of an existence 
 which is continuous. The soul grows and develops 
 during our normal life, and often is so quickened 
 
28 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 when the body is perishing that it has a foretaste of 
 blessed immortality, — sometimes there is a foretaste 
 of misery. 
 
 The best of earth cling to immortality. The sav- 
 age never doubts it; and those who hate and are 
 hated most, fear and tremble at its increasing visions. 
 
 The sure condition is covenanted to every faithful 
 soul: "Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the 
 days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the 
 Lord forever." 
 
 Burlington, Vt. 
 
 Mrs. Mabel Loomis Todd, Author and Astronomer. 
 April 21, 1904. 
 
 On page 103 of one of my books, " Corona and 
 Coronet,' ' you will find the following sentence, rela- 
 tive to the lonely death of Kate Field on an inter-isl- 
 and Hawaiian steamer, when I, a chance acquaintance, 
 was her only companion : 
 
 u Miss Field had never acknowledged herself de- 
 feated, and who shall call this unfinished work and 
 lonely death defeat — in face of an illimitable future?" 
 
 This may be, perhaps, a partial answer to your 
 question. 
 
 Observatory House, Amherst, Mass. 
 
 Mr. Morris Newburger, Merchant and Bank Presi- 
 dent. April 7, IQ04. 
 
 All devout Jews believe in the immortality of the 
 soul; in a higher life; in a life to come where they will 
 meet all their dear departed ones. 
 
 I examined the creeds of most of the ruling positive 
 religions, and none of them satisfied me completely. 
 So I turned to nature — God's own handiwork. I be- 
 held myriads of planets, stars, suns, and moons, and 
 found that they moved in perfect order. I saw the 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 29 
 
 seasons following one another with regularity, and I 
 concluded that an All-Wise Directing Power must be 
 behind all of it, for if there was not, there would be 
 chaos and destruction, and nothing could exist. The 
 next thought naturally was — in what relation do I 
 stand to that Power? The solution was easier than I 
 imagined. I am put on this earth by that All-Wise 
 Power for a purpose, which is indicated by the mental 
 and physical gifts with which I have been endowed. I 
 must use these gifts to the best of my ability, my rea- 
 son and conscience tell me, for my self-preservation 
 and for the benefit of others. What then, when all 
 this has been done and I must die? Then, feel sure 
 that the same All-Wise Power, the same God of the 
 Universe, has made such provision for you as in His 
 infinite wisdom is best for you in harmony with the 
 Universe. 
 
 These conclusions have completely satisfied me for 
 the last thirty years, and nothing that I have heard, 
 read or seen since has been able to change my views. 
 I therefore send you the following : 
 
 The Jews were the first people to proclaim to the 
 world the unity of God; the Sole Creator, Maintainer 
 and Governor of the World, from the beginning un- 
 to eternity. They proclaimed that God made man in 
 his own image ; that the world is a universe, a unity. 
 Therefore, as nothing can be lost out of the universe, 
 the spirit, the spark of life, or soul, inhabiting our 
 bodies at death, cannot be lost, but still forms part of 
 the universe to be used by God. 
 
 In other words, after death we are under the gov- 
 ernment and control of the same power, the same God 
 as in this life, and knowing that this life is imperfect, 
 and that our noblest and highest aspirations are unob- 
 tainable here, we may rightfully look to a just God 
 for better opportunities hereafter. It is for these rea- 
 
3 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 sons that Moses and the Prophets exhorted the people 
 to lead pure and righteous lives to prepare them for 
 the higher life to come. 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Charles Warren Stoddard, L. H. D., Ph.D., Author. 
 March 28, 19P4. 
 
 When your kind favor reached my address I was 
 recovering from an illness that carried me to the brink 
 of the grave. My escape from death was almost mir- 
 aculous. My life was despaired of, and I received the 
 Last Sacraments of the Church. With the memory 
 of that hallowed hour to soften and sweeten whatever 
 experiences may lie before, whatever sorrows may be- 
 fall me, I can send you — in testimony of my blind 
 faith — the lines enclosed. 
 
 "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic 
 Church, the Communion of saints, the forgiveness of 
 sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. 
 Amen." — The Apostle's Creed. 
 
 Out of the loam of this corruptible body springs 
 heavenward the invisible blossom of the soul ! — From 
 u The Lepers of Molokai," by Chas. W. Stoddard. 
 
 Noah K. Davis, A. M. y Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of 
 Philosophy, University of Virginia, Author of 
 "Juda's Jewels'" and "The Story of the Naza- 
 rene. f} March 4, 1904. 
 Most heartily do I believe in the immortality of the 
 soul. Clear reason coincides with revelation in sup- 
 port of this glorious doctrine. 
 
 Charlottesville, Va. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 31 
 
 William H. Collins, B. S., A. M., Astronomer, Di- 
 rector Haverford College Astronomical Observ- 
 atory. March 21, 1904. 
 
 Do I believe in immortality? Yes. 
 
 Haverford, Pa. 
 
 Mr. Albert B. Chandler, President Postal Telegraph 
 Cable Co. January 29, 1904. 
 
 I believe there is an existence beyond the grave. 
 The structure of my mind is so that I can cherish faith 
 and hope that the brief span of mortal life is not all. 
 The Universe could not have happened by chance. 
 There must have been a Creator, infinite in every per- 
 fection. Finite minds cannot comprehend him, and 
 can only faintly apprehend such of his works as are 
 within reach of our narrow mental and physical vi- 
 sion. It does not seem reasonable that the human 
 race should have been endowed with such faculties as 
 belong to* it only to die as the grass and the leaves die. 
 The intuitive expectation inborn in all mankind of a 
 life beyond the death of the body points to its realiza- 
 tion. 
 
 The teaching of Christ is the purest sentiment and 
 the best rule of action known to us. It is applicable 
 to each individual in all the world. It is reasonable 
 for us to believe that He was what he believed himself 
 to be. He brought life and immortality to> light, and I 
 gladly accept as conclusive what He has revealed. No 
 creed, no churches, no> forms or ceremonies are need- 
 ful for this, although they may be helpful. They are 
 only the outward expression of the preferences of in- 
 dividuals and are, no doubt, useful to great numbers 
 of people. 
 
 New York City. 
 
32 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Mr. Robert W . Chambers, Author and Artist. Janu- 
 ary 2Q, IQ04. 
 
 Nothing material is destructible; why should the 
 soul be ? 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Mr. John W ana-maker, Merchant, Ex-Postmaster 
 General. April 20, IQ04. 
 The Bible bristles with signs and proofs of the im- 
 mortality of man. Christ's resurrection confirmed by 
 as many reliable witnesses as support any other fact of 
 that period, is the strongest and most convincing evi- 
 dence. The transfiguration is very full of light upon 
 immortality. 
 
 (a) The two men who left the world miraculously 
 — Moses, whose grave could not be found, and Eli- 
 jah, who left the world in a chariot of fire, came back 
 to- testify to their own immortality, and also to talk 
 about Christ's death, who claimed that by dying and 
 rising again He would bring life and immortality to 
 light for all who would believe. 
 
 (b) There was mutual recognition on the Mount 
 of Transfiguration and there is not a doubt of identity 
 hinted. 
 
 (c) If Moses and Elias could come back and talk, 
 why cannot each of those who have entered into rest, 
 if the Lord wills, meet friends on mountains of trans- 
 figuration and talk? 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 T. J. J. See, A. M., Ph.D. {Berlin), F. R. A. S., Pro- 
 fessor cf Mathematics, U. S. N. April 3, IQ04. 
 I have yet to write my article on Immortality, but 
 if I live and carry out some plans I am forming, I 
 hope to prepare such a paper eventually, viewing the 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 33 
 
 matter as a man of scientific training views other phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 That the soul is immortal appears to me daily more 
 and more probable, almost certain ; let no one be de- 
 ceived by the materialism and pessimism of this de- 
 generate age. People will recover their senses after 
 awhile, and see that Plato, divine Plato, was right. 
 Man is not mere clay, but a part of the supreme intel- 
 ligence which endures through all generations. We 
 must therefore be patient, and labor on in faith till 
 we join the blessed of other ages and countries. What 
 Homer and Plato and the Greeks believed regarding 
 the divine character of the soul, I also believe; and 
 thus understand the sublime faith of Socrates. 
 
 Mare Island Observatory, CaL 
 
 Mr. G. W . Dickie, Manager Union Iron Works, Ex- 
 President Technical Society of Pacific Coast, San 
 Francisco, CaL January 26, 1904. 
 
 Many will admit they believe in immortality, but 
 how they came by such a belief is not so easy to put 
 into words, for this faith does not come to us like oth- 
 er branches of human knowledge and experience. 
 High as man stands above the things and creatures 
 around him, there is a higher and more exalted posi- 
 tion within his spiritual vision. And the ways are 
 infinite in which he occupies his thoughts in regard to 
 the fears, the hopes and the expectations of a future 
 life. 
 
 I have come to believe that the truth relative to a 
 future life cannot be brought to his knowledge by any 
 cultivation of his mental powers, however exalted 
 they may be ; that such knowledge, if it comes to him 
 at all, will come through other teaching than his own, 
 and will have to be received through simple faith in 
 the testimony given. I find that I cannot apply those 
 
34 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 mental operations which I find good in solving prob- 
 lems relating to this life, to those higher problems re- 
 lating to a life that for me has not yet come. When 
 that life comes, the ability to comprehend it will come, 
 like the faculties we now possess. I have never seen 
 anything incompatible between those things of man 
 which can be known and demonstrated by the mental 
 powers with which he is now endowed, and those high- 
 er things concerning his eternal future, that he cannot 
 find out by any exercise or culture of these faculties. 
 
 Man's hope of immortality became a clear and 
 steady conception through the teachings of Christ. 
 "If it were not so," He said, "I would have told you." 
 It cannot be questioned that there is, and always has 
 been, a deep and wide testimony in man's nature to a 
 future life. It may be pronounced either true or false, 
 but it must be admitted to exist. It appears in all coun- 
 tries and in all ages, and the seeming exceptions to it 
 no more contradict the fact than the absence of rea- 
 son in some individuals, or its low development in 
 some races, would lead us to deny that man is rational. 
 There is an indication of this in the manner in which 
 earthly things are often pursued. When we see a man 
 grasping at wealth and fame, or at power and pleas- 
 ure, casting them all into the void of the soul and still 
 unsatisfied, we begin to feel that he is made for the 
 infinite and the divine. The world cannot fill his soul, 
 because it is greater than the world. There is an indi- 
 cation of it also in the mind of man as he intermeddles 
 with all knowledge, pursues the broken rays of truth, 
 when he strives to resolve the facts he discovers into 
 laws, first general, then universal, and so upward to 
 our supreme center. 
 
 In his thirst for truth solely because it is truth, in 
 his faith in it, in his search after it as single and sover- 
 eign, there is a token of man's origin and destiny. It 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 35 
 
 comes to light, too, in the way a man pursues an ob- 
 ject beyond the range of self-interest and the term of 
 his own earthly life. This is not only seen in a few 
 men of lofty enthusiasm, who embrace a world or a 
 nation in their thoughts ; but every day, and In every 
 walk of life, we meet men who have aims more or less 
 exalted, for which they are ready to give time and la- 
 bor and endless anxiety, without any prospect of re- 
 ward or fame, without even any hope that they will 
 see the result. 
 
 In this stretch of man's soul beyond self, is there 
 not a look beyond earthly limits? Do we not find it 
 also in the conceptions men have of an ideal of per- 
 fection, in the delight with which they dwell upon it, 
 in their struggles to realize it, and in the deep lamen- 
 tations that come from the heart over the imperfect 
 and impure? This yearning after the pure and beau- 
 tiful can only be realized in immortality. In some 
 form, it is in all the religions which man has made for 
 himself — for he cannot remain permanently without a 
 religion and that religion must in some way have a fu- 
 ture. Individuals may reason themselves out of their 
 sense of an immortality, and particular nations and 
 ages, through the influence of a prevailing material- 
 ism, may have sunk very low in the appreciation of it ; 
 but it is still there, worked into the very fibre of the 
 human heart, ready to spring up when the right ap- 
 peal is made to it. 
 
 In the midst of all the materialism and the base 
 pursuit of wealth so prevalent in our day, the missions 
 of Christian churches at home and abroad, the sacri- 
 fices and self-denying labors for the spread of a gospel 
 of which eternal life is the premise, prove how strong 
 among many millions is the conviction of the value of 
 a soul in its immortal nature, and that vast numbers of 
 
36 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 men hold this as a great essential of their religion, and 
 are looking to God with the hope of an immortality. 
 
 I have only taken a glance at this great question 
 and with a dim eye, but I feel the hope within me 
 stronger than any power of expression, and if this 
 hope were false, surely there would be some way of 
 knowing it. 
 
 "If it were not so, He would have told us." 
 
 Mrs. Varina Jefferson Davis. January 28, IQ04. 
 
 I sincerely believe in the Holy Bible, and in Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of God and Redeemer of the world's 
 sinners, for whom he suffered all things and died on 
 the cross. I believe in the Trinity — the Father, Son 
 and Holy Ghost, "whose kingdom shall have no end." 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Cleveland Abbe, A. M., Ph.D., LL.D., S. B. y Me- 
 
 teorologist United States Weather Bureau; Pro- 
 fessor of Meteorology, Columbia University; 
 Lecturer on Meteorology, Johns Hopkins Uni- 
 versity. March 8, 11)04. 
 I was brought up in the confident belief that we are 
 immortal, and that after death we shall retain our in- 
 dividuality and our personal consciousness. The arg- 
 uments in favor of this belief are very well put in But- 
 ler's Analogy, but perhaps to myself the strongest ap- 
 peal comes from within. You may certainly quote me 
 as one who, through all the troubles and trials of life, 
 has not yet lost his belief in the fatherhood of God, 
 the brotherhood of man, and the hope of the resurrec- 
 tion. Life would hardly be worth living if this world 
 were all there is to it. 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 37 
 
 Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., Lawyer. February 7, IQ04.. 
 I believe there is an existence beyond the grave. 
 San Diego, Cal. 
 
 Mr. Henry Carey Band, Publisher and Political 
 Economist. January 18, 1904. 
 I have much pleasure in appending the confession 
 of faith of Gov. Lewis Morris, of New Jersey, which 
 I have accepted most heartily, and which is my own 
 belief. This I consider fundamental, and I am in per- 
 fect charity with all men and with all women who 
 build up a fuller faith on this great foundation. I 
 thank you for giving me an opportunity of calling 
 your attention to this splendid exposition of the faith 
 of one of the greatest men of the Colonial Period. 
 
 CONFESSION OF FAITH OF LEWIS MORRIS 
 
 Governor of the Province of New Jersey 1738-46 
 
 "I am now, and I doubt not I shall die, in the firm 
 belief that there is one God, the Creator of all things, 
 who governs the world, as he sees most suitable to 
 answer the purposes of his divine providence. What 
 the state of the dead is I know not, but believe it to 
 be such as is most suitable for them, and that their 
 condition and state of existence after death will be 
 such as will fully show the wisdom, justice, and good- 
 ness of their great Creator to them." 
 
 Will of Lewis Morris. Proved January 12, 1746. 
 
 Papers of Lewis Morris. Appendix, page 326. 
 New York, 1852. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
38 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Rear-Admiral fVinfield Scott Schley, U. S. N. Janu- 
 ary 31, 1Q04. 
 
 I am proud to say that I have the profoundest be- 
 lief in the existence of a better life, a higher life be- 
 yond the grave. 
 
 The fact that man in every condition of life from 
 the savage to the civilized state, wherever met, seeks 
 something outside and beyond himself to adore or ap- 
 peal to, is the evidence of the godlike in man, and it 
 finally triumphs as he emerges into more intellectual 
 light. 
 
 I do not, and I cannot, understand how anyone can 
 thrust this belief in God and God's goodness out of 
 his mind, surrounded as he is by so much in himself 
 and outside himself which proves that the theory of 
 accident is not sufficient to account for the mysteries 
 his best and highest cultivation cannot penetrate or 
 explain. 
 
 Washington, Z). C. 
 
 Mr, Charles Major ("Edwin Caskoden") , Lawyer 
 and Author. March 18, 1904. 
 
 In reply to your letter I would say: — I believe in 
 the immortality of the soul. Beyond a doubt it is in- 
 destructible and must have an eternity of life before 
 it. An onesided eternity is an axiomatic impossibility, 
 therefore I go one step further than the usual belief — 
 If the soul has as infinite future, it must have had an 
 infinite past. 
 
 This view of the case will not necessarily conflict 
 with any religious belief. It is simply a statement of 
 the question from a scientific standpoint. If there is a 
 human soul it certainly never had a beginning, and 
 can never cease to exist. It is not a thing for a day. 
 
 Shelbyville, Ind. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 39 
 
 Mr. John C. Havemeyer, Merchant and Sugar Refin- 
 er. May 13, IQ04. 
 Yes ; I believe there is a life beyond the grave. I feel 
 assured that while everything that is visible and ma- 
 terial is transient and subject to decay, there is a world 
 in which our existence will never terminate, and where 
 we shall be free from the limitations which pertain to 
 our earthly condition. 
 
 The chief ground of this conviction is the teaching 
 of the Bible, which I accept as a divine revelation, and 
 especially the portion which records the acts and 
 words of Jesus Christ. He came down from Heaven 
 or the other world and made revelations concerning it, 
 which included a declaration of the will of God and 
 our relations to Him, and gave positive assurance of a 
 future life in glorified bodies in which we should be 
 able to enjoy the divine presence, which He called 
 eternal life. 
 
 There seems abundant confirmation of this belief 
 in the consciousness or spiritual vision of Christians, in 
 the universal aspiration and hopes of mankind, in rea- 
 son, in the constitution of man and in the divine regu- 
 lation of the universe, which clearly shows a purpose 
 of developing mankind, for which we could not un- 
 derstand a motive unless we are immortal. 
 
 The influence of a belief in immortality in restrain- 
 ing men from evil and in developing high purposes 
 and noble and benevolent action is a powerful argu- 
 ment, and is so recognized by the world. I select a 
 few of the many confirmatory passages in Scripture : 
 Psalm 16:11: "In thy presence is fulness of joy, at 
 thy right hand there are pleasures for ever- 
 more." 
 John 1 1 :25 : "Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrec- 
 tion and the Life; he that believeth in me, 
 though he were dead, yet shall he live." 
 
40 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 John 14:3: U I go to prepare a place for you. And 
 if I go and prepare a place for you, I will 
 come again, and receive you unto myself; 
 that where I am, there ye may be also." 
 
 John 17:2 and 3: "As thou hast given him power 
 over all flesh, that he should give eternal 
 life to as many as thou hast given him. And 
 this is life eternal, that they might know 
 thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
 whom thou hast sent." 
 
 Romans 8:18: "For I reckon that the sufferings of 
 this present time are not worthy to be com- 
 pared with the glory which shall be re- 
 vealed in us." 
 
 1st Cor. 15 :53 : "For this corruptible must put on in- 
 corruption, and this mortal must put on 
 immortality." 
 
 2 Cor. 5:1: "For we know 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." 
 Yonkers, N. Y. 
 
 Mr. E. W. Halford, Paymaster U. S. A. February 
 2, 1904. 
 
 I believe in the life beyond this natural life, because 
 I believe in the revealed word of God, and especially 
 in His last and best word — Jesus Christ — who came 
 "to bring life and immortality to light." 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 James H. Baker, A. M., LL.D., President University 
 of Colorado. January 20, 1904. 
 Your question touches upon points of the profound- 
 est philosophy, but I will write this much : 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 41 
 
 The faith of the poets is not mere sentiment. This 
 is a rational world; reason appears in nature and in 
 the mind of man. Purpose appears in history. We 
 must believe not only that there is a great purpose 
 in creation, but that God is just and has the power of 
 fulfillment, and that what is incomplete in this life 
 will be completed in eternity. The conceptions of 
 God and immortality belong to rational and sane 
 minds, and are a scientific necessity to explain nature 
 and human nature. 
 
 Boulder, Colo. 
 
 Thomas Nelson Page, Litt. D., Author. February 26 } 
 1904. 
 
 It has always appeared to me that the Supreme 
 Being would not have made Love the divinest attri- 
 bute of human nature to cut it off suddenly at death. 
 The Roman Centurion seems to me to have expressed 
 the feeling of many men. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 T. Berry Smith, A. M., Professor of Chemistry and 
 Physics, Central College. February 27, 1904. 
 I believe because of the Scriptures, because of 
 nature with its evidences of design and wisdom and 
 beneficence and love, because of the beautiful lives 
 of my parents and friends, because of the peace that 
 believing brings me, because of the need of some 
 sphere of life to complement this one so full of disap- 
 pointment, of incompleteness and of longings never 
 satisfied. 
 
 FAITH 
 
 There's many a soul goes over the billowy sea, 
 And knows no more of him that guides the ship — 
 
42 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 The pilot at the wheel — than do we all 
 Of Him who steers the bar<J£of life across 
 The stormy gulf of Time ; yet there is One 
 With watchful eye — somewhere — at the helm. 
 
 (Reprinted from "In Many Moods.") 
 MY DEATHLESS SELF 
 
 I'm dying aye, and yet not all I die — 
 
 I recollect the things of long ago. 
 
 In ceaseless current through my body flow 
 The earthy motes that halt so restlessly 
 Upon the shores of my mortality, 
 
 And then rush back with Nature's undertow 
 
 To Nature's deep whose limits none can know : 
 'Tis thus I'm dying aye, yet do not die, 
 
 That which dies not, the deathless self of me, 
 Unchanging is. 'Tis this that hopes and loves 
 
 Amid all change ; 'tis this by faith can see 
 The future through; 'tis this the bygone proves 
 
 And laughs at thoughts of brief mortality ; 
 My deathless self incarnate lives and moves. 
 
 Fayette, Mo. 
 
 Mr. Dudley Buck, Organist and Composer. J anu- 
 uary 20, IQ04.. 
 
 There is little basis for argument; for, as Shakes- 
 peare states it, it eternally remains "the undiscov- 
 ered country from whose bourne no traveller returns." 
 However, as you ask my personal opinion, I say 
 emphatically : "Credo!" 
 
 To my mind all analogy (even to the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms) speaks and insists upon a life 
 after temporary death so-called. All savage, as well 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 4 3 
 
 as civilized peoples, have this instinct. It must come 
 from some outside source, the "All-Father." With 
 this belief continuous through so many centuries, and 
 active and continuous to-day, I cannot believe this 
 world to be any more than a "kindergarten." There- 
 fore it would seem incredible that the intelligence so 
 fostered and acquired should be extinguished ; it must 
 logically graduate to higher schools. 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 William P. Frye, LL.D., United States Senator from 
 Maine. January 22, 1904. 
 
 I have an abiding faith in the immortality of the 
 soul. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 From John Watson Foster, LL.D., Diplomat, Ex- 
 Secretary of State. January 22, 1904. 
 
 I believe in the immortality of the soul, among 
 other reasons, because I accept Jesus Christ as a 
 Divine Teacher, and recognize his resurrection as a 
 historical fact. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Thomas D. Lockwood, Electrical Expert and Engi- 
 neer, Authority on Telephony and Telegraphy. 
 March 27, 1904. 
 
 I find it not an easy task to formulate views — my 
 views — on immortality, but I am not unwilling to set 
 down a few thoughts on the subject. 
 
 Immortality to me is no theory, but a living fact 
 — an absolute condition. Something which has noth- 
 ing to do with science. A reality : more so, indeed, in 
 many ways than this present life, which as the years 
 pass, I find myself becoming more perfectly assured is 
 largely educational and preparational. 
 
44 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 With Cicero, I am willing to say: "If I err in 
 believing that the soul is immortal, I willingly err; 
 nor while I live would I wish to have this delightful 
 error extorted from me; and if after death I shall 
 feel nothing, as some minute philosophers think, I am 
 not afraid lest dead philosophers should laugh at me 
 for the error." But I am persuaded that our con- 
 victions of immortality should be indefinitely more 
 sure than those of Cicero, and with the great apostle 
 I consider that, "if in this life only we have hope in 
 Christ, we are of all men most miserable. " 
 
 I hold these views neither in the light of, or in 
 spite of the operations and revelations of science; but 
 because of the inward convictions of my own life, 
 and because these are in conformity with the teach- 
 ings of the Master, who said with authority I fully 
 accept: "I am the resurrection and the life; he that 
 believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
 live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
 never die." 
 
 Melrose, Mass. 
 
 Mrs. Clara S. Foltz, Lawyer, the first woman admit- 
 ted to the bar on the Pacific Coast, known as 
 "The Portia of the Pacific. 99 , February 15, 
 1904. 
 To my mind, it is more than probable that we shall 
 continue to live "beyond the grave." It is a 
 desire of all to continue to live, and the desire itself is 
 in the nature of proof that we are immortal. 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 Prof. Lewis Swift, Ph.D., F. R. A. S. February 
 
 Si I 9°4; 
 
 Yours asking if I believe there is an existence 
 beyond the grave., etc., is received. It is a question 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 45 
 
 of mighty import, and I emphatically answer yes, and 
 add that I wish all astronomers would say the same. 
 
 I believe God was the creator of the universe, that 
 His son was born, lived, died, rose from the tomb, 
 and ascended to heaven as recorded in the Bible. I 
 believe the Bible to be of divine origin. I believe that 
 as there are two classes of people here — the good and 
 the bad — there will be two conditions beyond the 
 grave, one for the righteous, and one for the wicked. 
 If not, what will be the difference between the then 
 and the now? 
 
 I believe we shall know each other there, and that 
 the saints will during an eternity that will never end, 
 visit the worlds that gem night's concave vault that 
 the telescope descries in countless millions, suns every 
 one like ours, warming, lighting, guiding and ferti- 
 lizing planets where beings like ourselves are dwell- 
 ing, whom during the countless ages that are to come, 
 we shall meet, and praise the Creator for His good- 
 ness and His wonderful works. 
 
 Marathon, N. Y. 
 
 Brig. Gen.FitzhughLee* United States Army. Feb* 
 ruary j, 1904. 
 
 Replying to your question, I write to say that I 
 believe in the immortality of the soul. My reasons for 
 doing so will be found in the fifteenth chapter of 
 First Corinthians. 
 
 Richmond, Va. 
 
 Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster, Editor, Staff Con- 
 tributor and Author. February 6, 19 04. 
 In reply to your letter asking me as to my belief in 
 an existence beyond the grave, I answer you that I 
 
 *Died April 29, 1905. 
 
46 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 accept as conclusive the teachings of the Bible, and 
 the promises of immortality held out by our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. When, He arose from the grave, He 
 pledged life and immortality to all who sleep in 
 death. I have no more doubt of a future life than I 
 have of to-morrow's rising sun. Furthermore, I do 
 not believe that there is even an interval of uncon- 
 sciousness in the passing of the soul to another room 
 in God's Universe. With the dropping of the body, 
 the soul loses the handicaps and limitations of time, 
 and enters at once into the joy and peace of the life in 
 the Father's House. 
 
 Please do not let me leave with you the impression 
 that I believe in death as the purification and atone- 
 ment of and for all the evils and sins of this life. For 
 full salvation there is only one way, and that the 
 way of our Saviour who gave up his life on the cross 
 to be a ransom for many. That all souls shall live 
 evermore I fully believe. That they shall live ever- 
 more in perfect happiness I also believe must depend 
 on their acceptance of Jesus Christ as a Saviour while 
 they remain on earth. 
 
 Glen Ridge, N. J. 
 
 W. E. B. Du Bois, A. M., Ph.D., Professor of 
 Economics and History, Atlanta University. 
 January 30, IQ04. 
 
 I have a thousand years of work laid out before 
 me. And each year as it flies leaves the vision of 
 another thousand. I should like to live to finish all 
 this; it seems reasonable that I should; I hope I 
 may. 
 
 Atlanta, Ga. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 4 7 
 
 Hon. Lucius H. Foote, Diplomat, Secretary Academy 
 of Sciences of San Francisco. February 5, 1904. 
 
 If there is no hereafter, life is incomplete. I 
 believe in immortality because I wish to, and no man 
 has the right to question my belief because no man 
 can prove that it is not so. It is the consolation and 
 the hope of mankind, and the one elevating and 
 restraining influence which regulates the world; with- 
 out it — anarchy and brutality. 
 
 I give you the closing lines of a poem written by 
 myself sometime since : 
 
 I questioned my soul as I stood by the dead; 
 My soul, in its anguish, made answer and said, — 
 No power can destroy, and no fiat create; 
 For death is transition, and life is a state, 
 The fruit of conditions coercive as fate. 
 Each atom of form, and each atom of force, 
 Exist as a part of their infinite source; 
 And whether in motion, or whether at rest, 
 Must live, by a law that is never transgressed. 
 This then is the marvellous secret of death, 
 To live without life, and to breathe without death. 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 Miss Helen M. Winslow, Editor and Publisher The 
 Clubzvoman. February 6, 1904. 
 
 Of course I believe in a future life, but I haven't 
 a moment's time to write out any reasons therefor. 
 
 Shirley, Mass. 
 
 John Gilmer Speed, A. M., C. E., Author and Edi- 
 tor. February 12, 1904. 
 I have received your request, and feel some embar- 
 rassment in answering it. My thoughts have gener- 
 
48 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 ally been directed as to how to live the present life 
 without reference to what is beyond, as I have always 
 felt that that would take care of itself. To be sure, I 
 have always believed in a future life; but why I have 
 believed in it is beyond me to say. It is certainly not 
 on account of what is sometimes called "revealed re- 
 ligion" ; it is rather an instinct that is a part of my na- 
 ture. I have never had any messages that told me 
 any more than the primal man knew ; and he believed 
 as firmly as possible in a future beyond this life. Now 
 I suspect a whole bench of bishops can really know 
 no more than this. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius said: u He who' dreads death 
 dreads either the extinction of sense or a different sort 
 of sensation. But if all sense is extinguished, there 
 can be no sense of evil; while if sensation is trans- 
 formed, you become another sort of creature and do 
 not cease to live." 
 
 Mendham, N. J. 
 
 Hon. George W . Bartch ) Associate Justice Supreme 
 Court y Utah. February to, igo^f. 
 
 Replying to your inquiry as to my belief in an ex- 
 istence beyond the grave, I wish to say that I firm- 
 ly believe we will have an existence after death. To 
 me, all Nature indicates this, as well as the Holy 
 Scriptures. To live at all is the greatest mystery of 
 all. To exist a single day is, it seems to me, more of a 
 mystery than to exist throughout an eternity. I doubt 
 not that our God who gave us life can preserve it in 
 the hereafter. 
 
 Salt Lake City, Utah. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 49 
 
 Mr. Francis B. Reeves, Merchant, President Girard 
 National Bank, President Philadelphia Belt 
 Line R. R. Co* March 24, 1904. 
 
 There is a natural world and there is a spiritual 
 world; first the natural, afterward the spiritual. That 
 nothing is lost in the natural world has come to be 
 regarded as an axiom of science : how can it be other- 
 wise than true in the spiritual realm ? 
 
 We who believe that we are heirs to immortality, 
 that death does not end all, need not worry in the least 
 because there are some who are wont to express their 
 doubts concerning it, simply because they have not yet 
 seen the proof of it. Perhaps there always will be 
 some who will ask, "How are the dead raised up and 
 with what body do they come?" and others who will 
 speculate upon an intermediate state, and upon the 
 question of recognition of loved ones in heaven, for- 
 getting the necessary limitations of our terrestrial ex- 
 istence, and that such knowledge would be too won- 
 derful for our mundane understanding and accept- 
 ance. Why demand the impossible? How can the 
 finite comprehend the infinite? 
 
 God has implanted within man, in his best estate, 
 the glorious hope of a new heaven and a new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness, thereby distinguish- 
 ing him above the brutes that perish. Whether they 
 who wilfully refuse to cherish such hope, who pervert 
 God's grace and despise His name, shall have place in 
 
 *Mr. Reeves was commissioned by the Philadelphia Relief 
 Committee to visit Russia, in 1892, to deliver the steam- 
 ship Conemaugh's cargo of flour for the relief of sufferers 
 from famine, and, in recognition of his services, Emperor 
 Alexander III. presented him with a valuable table service 
 of gold and silver. 
 
• 
 
 5 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 the heavenly kingdom, need not be discussed. It is 
 not for us to settle such questions. I feel that God 
 will be very merciful to honest doubters, and that He 
 will deal justly with reprobates. 
 
 We who have this blessed hope as an anchor to our 
 souls firmly believe in God and trust Him. More- 
 over, we rest in His Word, in which nothing is more 
 clearly taught than that man's existence is intermin- 
 able. We rejoice, too, in the confident assurance that 
 God would never have given us this most precious of 
 all hopes only to blast it i this most ennobling of all 
 aspirations and these deep longings of heart born 
 of a pure, undying love, only to deceive us. It cannot 
 be that God would make such ample and gracious 
 and loving provision for our temporal comfort and 
 enjoyment for a few brief years in the flesh, and none 
 whatever for our souls' most sacred yearnings. It 
 cannot be that a mother must give up her child at the 
 grave, never to be reunited with it. If there be no 
 union of hearts, fostered and made sacred here, that 
 is to be perpetuated there, then we may properly ask 
 that question so often foolishly propounded, "Is life 
 worth living?" 
 
 The hope of life everlasting is not confined to the 
 professedly Christian world, yet it is in greatest 
 measure the Christian's privilege to enjoy it. I speak 
 as a Christian to Christians when I quote these preg- 
 nant words of the great apostle to the Gentiles, — "If 
 in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all 
 men most miserable." 
 
 "In this life only" — how these words bring to our 
 remembrance the evils of this present world, its fail- 
 ures and disappointments, life's inequalities, and the 
 incompleteness of our most valued worldly plans and 
 purposes; and, more than all else, the sufferings we 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 51 
 
 undergo when death takes from us our sweetest and 
 best loved ones ! 
 
 No, our faith in Christ and in the wisdom, justice, 
 mercy and love of God enables us to say with St. 
 Paul. "We know that if the earthly house of our 
 tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, 
 a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. " 
 Faith takes a firm hold of this "we know," and will 
 not let it go. This is a gift that no man nor devil 
 can take away from us. The man who believes only 
 what he can see here below is spiritually blind. There 
 is One only who can open his eyes. "Happy are 
 they who have not seen and yet have believed. M 
 Blessed are they who, through spiritual discernment, 
 born of God, have a firmer hold upon the spiritual 
 world than the natural, to whom life beyond the 
 grave is no less real than are their carnal pleasures, 
 appetites, passions and employments; for to them 
 this undying hope is immeasurably more satisfying 
 than are all the world's evanescent joys, while it 
 brings to 1 them when sorrows assail them, the sweet- 
 est relief and comfort. 
 
 "Still seems it strange that thou shouldst live for- 
 ever? 
 Is it less strange that thou shouldst live at all ? 
 This is a miracle : and that no more." 
 
 Can it be? 
 Matter immortal? And shall Spirit die? 
 Above the nobler, shall less noble rise? 
 Shall man alone, for whom all else revives, 
 No resurrection know ? Shall man alone, 
 Imperial Man ! be sown in barren ground, 
 Less privileged than grain on which he feeds? 
 Germantown, Pa. 
 
52 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Thomas Ball, A. M., Sculptor, January ig, igo^. 
 
 I have a firm belief in a life beyond the grave; 
 because I believe in a Supreme Being who rules and 
 directs the universe. My reasons for the latter belief 
 may be found in everything pertaining to this beauti- 
 ful world, from the humblest flower of the field to the 
 starry firmament. 
 
 Scientists and philosophers may find reasons suf- 
 ficient for their own unbelief, but not for mine. 
 
 Montclair, N. J. 
 
 Mr, Hezekiah Butterzvorth, Author and Editor. 
 January 20, 1904* 
 
 I am taking an interest in your book. It is a thing 
 needed ; nothing could be more timely and interest- 
 ing. Where are we now ? Whither are we drifting ? 
 The metaphysical and psycomath clubs here tend to 
 Kant's conclusion, u The spirit is the only reality." 
 
 I believe in spiritual laws of the soul. To obey the 
 divine laws of one's own soul is to secure the largest 
 results possible to life. When the change of death 
 destroys the objective life, it leaves us to the sub- 
 jective life, and we follow spiritual gravitation. 
 
 My views are those of Emmanuel Kant in his 
 " Critique of Practical Reason," and of Fichte in his 
 "Way to the Blessed Life." 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Mr. Henry Dexter, Founder of the American News 
 Company. January 21, 1904. 
 I pin my faith to the words of the Saviour found in 
 John XIV.2, 3. u In my Father's house are many 
 mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. 
 I go to prepare a place for you. 
 
 *Died Sept 5, 1905. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 53 
 
 u And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will 
 come again, and receive you unto myself that where I 
 am, there ye may be also." 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Nathan Haskell Dole, A. M., Author and Literary 
 Adviser, President Omar Khayyam Society of 
 America, and of Bibliophile Society. February 
 12, 1904. 
 
 I look forward to death with far higher anticipa- 
 tion than to any earthly journey. To get rid of the 
 limitations of the flesh, to be a spiritual body not 
 dependent on food or on drink or an exasperatingly 
 tedious means of locomotion, is realization of free- 
 dom after slavery. The attitude of the Christian 
 world toward death is a perpetual arraignment of the 
 faith which is held up as divine. If Christianity offers 
 anything better than paganism promised, we should 
 rejoice at the death of those who were called, realiz- 
 ing that they are escaping manifold sorrow and pain. 
 All the mourning emblems, the trappings of woe, 
 now attendant on death, especially at the passing on 
 of the aged and the incurably diseased, show that men 
 are still barbarians. 
 
 And yet immortality is only a hope. Science 
 upholds it, in as far as science declares that no force 
 is lost. The cutting off of a human being or even of 
 an animal in the full tide of its powers, simply means 
 (in terms of our mechanical knowledge) that the 
 energy is transmuted. Does consciousness accompany 
 this transformation ? When the corporeal cells which 
 contain our life decay is it conceivable that memory 
 preserves the past? In the case of most men, this 
 perpetuity of remembrance would be no joy. Is it not 
 more in accordance with what we know that death 
 should be rather a new birth? The spiritual body 
 born into new conditions will be the child, as it were, 
 
54 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 of the dead; just as a baby born after its father's 
 death and immediately left an orphan looks like its 
 father and mother, acts like its father and mother, 
 and yet can have no recollection of either. Coming 
 into new relations with those that had passed on 
 before, it would form connections on parallel lines, 
 and be as happy as if it renewed old friendships and 
 loves. Such thoughts are to me a comfort in a mate- 
 rialistic and skeptical age. At all events, I have no 
 fear of the beneficent outcome of either life or death. 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Henry Churchill King, B. D., A. M., D. D., Presi- 
 dent Oberlin College. February 8, 1904. 
 
 I have a firm conviction in existence beyond the 
 grave; for without this conviction I should hardly 
 be able to believe that the world was a truly rational 
 world, in the broad sense of that term. This gen- 
 eral consideration includes for me many particular 
 arguments into which I need not go. 
 
 Oberlin, O. 
 
 Hon. Henry B. Metcalf, Manufacturer, President 
 Corporation of Tufts College. February n, 
 1904* 
 Do I believe in life beyond the grave ? 
 Emphatically, yes ! 
 
 I have never yet heard an argument to the con- 
 trary that commanded respect. 
 Pawtucket, R. L 
 
 Mrs. Lodusky J. Taylor, Ex-President National 
 Woman's Relief Corps. February 16, 1904. 
 I have not time to write a lengthy article on the 
 subject, but I want to say that I believe most sincerely 
 
 *Died 1904. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 55 
 
 in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, and He, 
 having died and risen from the dead, has prepared 
 the way for us. He has also promised to prepare a 
 home for us, and I believe that the teachings of God's 
 holy word bear out every thought of a life here- 
 after. 
 
 Le Sueur, Minn. 
 
 Hon. Miguel Otero, Governor of New Mexico. Feb- 
 ruary 25, 1904. 
 
 I personally believe implicitly in the immortality 
 of the soul. The very fact of such belief prohibits the 
 giving of reasons; for implicit belief and faith are 
 above and beyond all reason. This faith and belief 
 is as old as humanity itself, and has no connection 
 with so-called religious creeds, denominations or 
 sects. It is the divine heritage alike of the primeval 
 savage in his cave or lair and of the latest product 
 of advanced civilization in the most cultured homes. 
 It is the holy spirit of God, given us as the perfume 
 is to the flower, its brilliance to the diamond, and the 
 intangible soul and conscience to the body. None of 
 these can be weighed in the nicest balance constructed 
 by human skill, or measured by the minutest stand- 
 ards devised by the greatest scientists, any more than 
 can that mighty force which rules the world, — has 
 changed its course in history, has made and unmade 
 dynasties, and is the foundation not only of the home 
 but of the nation, and all that makes humanity the 
 better, — that unseen, indefinable, intangible gift of 
 the Almighty which we call Love. 
 
 No reasons can be given for these, and no finite 
 mind can explain or account for any of them. It may 
 be that by a persistent course of "reason," men may 
 dwarf their capacity for the immortality that is theirs 
 by divine right, and become as the beasts that per- 
 
56 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 ish; but this can only be accomplished by wilful per- 
 version of their gifts. 
 Santa Fe t N. M. 
 
 Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, President National 
 American Woman Suffrage Association. March 
 2, 1904. 
 
 I believe in an after life. The instinct within us 
 compels us to believe that our existence cannot ter- 
 minate here, and the injustices of this world require 
 the justice of another world to equalize human expe- 
 riences. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Robert Treat Paine, A. M., Philanthropist, Presi- 
 dent Associated Charities of Boston, the Amer- 
 ican Peace Society, and other Associations. Feb- 
 ruary 5, 1904. 
 
 I believe in life beyond the grave as firmly as 
 I believe that I live. The greatest thing in the world 
 is love. God who has created the world must be 
 greater than any part or the whole of His creation, 
 therefore God must be a God of love more perfectly 
 than any force of love which human imagination can 
 conceive. 
 
 Now the human soul has grown by the evolution of 
 ages to believe in and to rely on a future life, and it is 
 not conceivable that evolution can, under the guid- 
 ance of an infinite Creator and Ruler, teach a lie, 
 therefore absolute faith in a future life must be 
 entirely beyond all question. 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 57 
 
 Hon. James H. Peabody, Governor of Colorado. 
 February g y 1904. 
 
 I take pleasure in saying that my great comfort 
 in my daily work and employment is a firm belief 
 in the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. That 
 there is an existence beyond the grave is to my mind 
 above and beyond speculation; for, believing in the 
 promises contained in the Word of God, I can readily 
 believe the promise and find comfort therein, that 
 "We shall meet them and know them face to face;" 
 so that when we are separated from our dear ones by 
 the sudden approach of death, I know that such sep- 
 aration is not final. 
 
 This belief should soften our sorrow into most ten- 
 der recollections, and if we so believe we can derive 
 much comfort from the lingering sweetness of a 
 present great bereavement. u Thy kingdom come, 
 Thy will be done," contains a statement of our belief 
 as well as a supplication to Almighty God. 
 
 This, briefly, is my belief, and my reason for such 
 belief. 
 
 Denver, Colo. 
 
 R. H.-Dana, LL.D., Lawyer and Political Reformer. 
 January 28, 1904. 
 
 I believe in a future life. While this belief is not 
 susceptible of positive proof, neither is the opposite 
 belief. 
 
 Though not susceptible of positive proof, my 
 belief is in accord with the probabilities in the case 
 as pretty well established by the latest and highest 
 metaphysical philosophy. To be sure, some eminent 
 scientists, going out of their own specialty and dab- 
 bling in the deeper questions without any adequate 
 training in or even conception of the results already 
 attained in metaphysics, have led many people to a 
 
 
58 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 disbelief in the future life. The mistake has been in 
 treating an authority in one line as an authority in a 
 wholly different line; in trusting the navigation of a 
 steamship with its freight and lives to a man because 
 he is an expert in botany. 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 E. M. Gallaudet, B. S.. LL.D., Ph.D., President 
 Gallaudet College for the Deaf. February i, 
 
 I was brought up by Christian parents to believe in 
 an individual immortality. I have cherished that be- 
 lief, and hold it now at a point in life when I have 
 reason to expect to face the future beyond the grave 
 within a very few years. 
 
 One great reason for my belief in a future life is 
 that all the facts of consciousness point to a continu- 
 ance of the life of the soul beyond the death of the 
 body, rather than to its destruction at death; and I 
 feel that the burden of proof against this idea lies 
 with those who object to it, so, as we have no proof 
 that death ends all, I am disposed to believe that the 
 individual life will continue beyond the grave. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Edward S. Ellis, A. M., Author. April 75, IQ04. 
 
 I have never for one moment felt the most 
 shadowy doubt of the immortality of our existence. 
 And yet that is no argument in favor of an endless 
 life beyond the grave. As yet, this faith or truth has 
 not been scientifically demonstrated, but I believe that 
 among the marvelous achievements of the present 
 century will be such scientific proof, which will be 
 given to man in the fulness of God's own time. Such 
 belief on my part constitutes no argument, for I may 
 err. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 59 
 
 It seems to me, however, that sound reason is on 
 the side of a belief in our immortality. Myriads of 
 men and women have died when on the threshold of 
 a career of usefulness and triumph. What is more 
 reasonable than that their work is to be carried on in 
 conditions that are perfectly adapted to such devel- 
 opment? 
 
 The most learned person I ever knew was the late 
 Gen. P. S. Michie, Senior Professor of Mathe- 
 matics at the West Point Military Academy. He 
 once said to me: "I claim to be a scientific man and, 
 as such, I no more doubt my future existence and that 
 I shall go forward with the work I am doing so 
 imperfectly in this world, than I doubt that you are 
 sitting in that chair." Gladstone said that in the 
 course of his long life, he had come in close contact 
 with sixty of the greatest minds in the world, and 
 fifty-four of them were profound believers in immor- 
 tality. I am not yet prepared to proclaim that this 
 array, not including the multitude whom no man can 
 number, were or are fools. 
 
 May it not be claimed as scientifically true that 
 when the inert elements that are as dead as a stone 
 or fossil feel that first fluttering throb of the mys- 
 terious, incomprehensible something which we call 
 life, that life must already have been in existence in 
 order to enter into the body? Is it not equally true 
 that when the body dies, its life goes somewhere? 
 It therefore existed before the formation of its 
 earthly tabernacle, exists afterward, and exists for- 
 ever. 
 
 Montclair, A 7 ". /. 
 
6o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Mr. William Hamilton Hayne, Author. February 
 10, IQO4. 
 
 It seems to me that the belief in immortality arises 
 from the deepest instincts of the soul, and is illum- 
 inated by faith, and supported by reason. As Bayard 
 Taylor once wrote my father, with regard to the 
 future life: "It is proven by its own needs." 
 
 I inclose a quatrain, which was published in The 
 Sunday School Tunes, of Philadelphia, and will give 
 you my view of this subject from one of its many 
 standpoints. 
 
 FLOWER AND THORN. 
 
 Twin miracle of joy and gloom, — 
 
 Pain-circled yet divine decree: 
 Death is the thorn o'er which doth bloom 
 
 The flower of immortality. 
 Augusta, Ga. 
 
 Hon. J. G. McCullough, Governor of Vermont and 
 President Chicago and Erie R. R. February 
 9, 1904. < 
 The best evidence that there is a life beyond the 
 grave is that such a belief has obtained among most 
 of the races of men during many ages of the past. 
 North Bennington, Vt. 
 
 Laurence Hutton, A. M., Author and Lecturer. Feb- 
 ruary 9, 1904* 
 In reply to your question, I send you a quotation 
 from my "Literary Landmarks of Oxford," pp. 
 
 "And there are men still living who would like 
 
 *Died June 10, 1904. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 61 
 
 to have known Charles Lamb in the flesh. There is 
 one man still living in Princeton, New Jersey, who 
 when he has kissed his Father and his Mother — in 
 the spirit — when he has patted his dogs, and has 
 talked with his friends, is going to hang around 
 the Golden Staircase until he can catch the 
 eyes of Charles Lamb and of Mary Lamb, the sister 
 of Charles." 
 
 Princeton, N. J. 
 
 Mrs. Margaret Bottome, Author, President Interna- 
 tional Order of the King's Daughters and Sons. 
 January 20, 1904. 
 
 "If you believe there is an existence beyond the 
 grave, will you be good enough to send me an expres- 
 sion on the subject. " 
 
 The above has just reached me — I am smiling as I 
 write — to me the existence of the life beyond the 
 grave seems more than a belief — I have eternal life. 
 My immortal life has commenced, and death will be 
 only an incident in my life. 
 
 "Love is everything and death is naught," Brown- 
 ing wrote; and I have no doubt but "The other 
 room" will be very lovely. 
 
 Yours in this faith. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Henry E. Pellew, M. A., Philanthropist, President 
 Society for Improving Condition of Poor, Sani- 
 tary Reform, St. George's, etc. February 12, 
 1904. 
 Being a firm believer in the truths of the Gospel, 
 and able conscientiously to accept the deductions from 
 it as guides to our spiritual and temporal conduct in 
 this state of existence, I have never doubted that my 
 life would not end with the grave. 
 
62 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 At the same time the sense of personal responsi- 
 bility and the conception of what immortality must be 
 — %<ori alcovios — existence through all eons — so 
 overwhelm my weak finite powers of imagination 
 that I dare not discuss such a future or what it may 
 mean. Others may do so and picture a condition of 
 hereafter which pleases their fancy and their ideas of 
 heaven. To me it is all a great mystery. In my 
 code of ethics, the body with its directing will power 
 perishes at death, while the spiritual essence, then 
 freed from its mortal cover, enters on an eternal 
 existence. As a Christian, I believe in Christ's God- 
 head and Manhood, and that only through his incar- 
 nation are salvation and freedom from the effect of 
 sin obtainable. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, Writer and Philan- 
 thropist, "The Mother of Women's Clubs." 
 April 18, IQ04. 
 The doubts which would intrude and clamor for 
 solution, in earlier years, touching the question of 
 life beyond the grave, have, with the earnest thought 
 of later years, been met by the facts not only of the 
 universal intimations and unquenchable hope and 
 desire of the human soul, on which Wordsworth and 
 Emerson so largely based their belief in a future life, 
 — but the other fact of the moral order of life as we 
 know it on this earth : that without its continuity and 
 continued development, the universe would seem to 
 our intelligence a chaos, a fatuitous concurrence of 
 atoms, albeit atoms of superb endowment, and capac- 
 ity to conquer and ennoble one life, and grasp 
 another by the splendid reach of such faculties. A 
 more astounding miracle and problem than its alter- 
 native. Confirmed, also, by the other fact: that 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 63 
 
 Science in proving for us the conservation of energy 
 and the indestructibility of matter has proven beyond 
 denial the immortality of the spirit, — the power 
 which creates, reorganizes, and controls matter, even 
 through the hands of "finite man," — perhaps falsely 
 so-called. 
 
 These considerations form the basis of my belief in 
 a life beyond the grave, to which our own "sacred 
 book," and those of all previous and living nations, 
 bear testimony. And my hope is that that life may 
 not be a reabsorption by its infinite and original 
 source, as many thinkers believe; but a life of con- 
 scious personality, to develop and enjoy through end- 
 less ages, passing from glory to glory, and from star 
 to star of the boundless firmament above and about 
 us. That "the best is yet to be," I am sure — not only 
 there, but on this beautiful, bountiful planet of ours, 
 wrought out by the noble manhood and womanhood 
 of our time and of all coming time — the redemption 
 of all peoples from the blight of injustice and oppres- 
 sion, into the glorious liberty of the children of God, 
 the Father of all. Let us all be diligent in helping 
 to speed that day ! 
 
 Los Angeles, CaL ■ 
 
 Mr. Ernest Howard Crosby, Author and Social Re- 
 former. January 22, 1904. 
 
 I believe that when we give ourselves up to the 
 feeling of universal love for all things we become con- 
 scious of an immortal centre of life within us which 
 transcends time and space. But I would not attempt 
 to define further this immortality. 
 
 The ordinary Christian argument based upon the 
 testimony of witnesses to the appearance of Christ 
 after his crucifixion seems to be condemned by Christ 
 himself in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, 
 
64 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 for Abraham there says: "If they hear not Moses 
 and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded 
 though one rose from the dead." (Luke XVI. 31). 
 What Christ meant by "Moses and the prophets" He 
 makes sufficiently clear in another place: "Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and 
 with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the 
 first and great commandment. And the second is 
 like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
 self. On these commandments hang all the law and 
 the prophets." (Matt. XXII.37-40). 
 New York City. 
 
 Mrs. Sara J. Lippincott, ("Grace Greenwood") Au- 
 thor. February 14, 1904. 
 
 I have seen a good deal of spiritualism and believe 
 firmly in it — at times: yet my prayer is, "Lord, I 
 believe, help Thou mine unbelief." My feeling of 
 late, in the midst of sorrow, is expressed in the 
 enclosed poem, which I hope will answer your pur- 
 pose.* 
 
 New Rochelle. N. Y. 
 
 Rear-Admiral John Lowe, U. S. N. } retired. March 
 26, igof. 
 
 I find it quite impossible to say all that I would like 
 to say, within the compass of a short letter such as 
 this, so that I must content myself with these few 
 words : 
 
 Human intellect is not sufficient of itself to dis- 
 cover any abstract truth. To discover the truth of 
 the present, we need experiment; to discover the 
 truths of the past, we need history; to discover the 
 
 *See page 259, Part III. "Grace Greenwood" died April 
 20, 1 904. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 65 
 
 truths of the future, we need absolutely — REVELA- 
 TION. 
 
 I have small patience with those who judge of the 
 past, or predict upon the future, with knowledge 
 gained solely in the present. Idolatry, Witchcraft, 
 Transmigration of Souls, Spiritualism, Evolution, 
 and the like, are the best that such men can pro- 
 duce. 
 
 The Bible, the Prayer Book, the Lord's Prayer, 
 the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and 
 the Church Catechism are good enough for me, who 
 only claim to be an ordinary man of average intel- 
 ligence. These authorities are sufficient for me, to 
 give me faith, hope and charity. Let those who have 
 extraordinary intellect discard the Word of God, and 
 put their trust in their superabundant intellectuality, 
 — I will not. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Rear-Admiral N. von H. Farquhar, U. S. N. } retired. 
 February ig } 190.4.. 
 I believe in the immortality of the soul. 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Hon. Henry C. McWhorter, Judge Supreme Court 
 of Appeals, West Virginia. March 21, 1904. 
 
 Do I believe in an existence beyond the grave? I 
 have no more doubt of that fact than I have of my 
 existence now and here. 
 
 First: The intense yearning and longing of my 
 whole being for something higher and nobler and bet- 
 ter than can be attained in this life, tells me unmistak- 
 ably that something awaits me beyond this present 
 life. 
 
 Second: I believe in an infinite intelligence — a 
 personal God, Maker and Preserver of all things, 
 
66 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 who has a purpose in the creation of all intelligent 
 beings, and if this life "ends all' that purpose must 
 be thwarted. While this life is one of progression it 
 does not here reach perfection, and perfection in His 
 economy must be attained, or the Divine government 
 is a failure. What His purpose is in placing us here 
 we may not understand, but infinite wisdom so< or- 
 dained it. 
 
 Third: He has revealed the fact in his written 
 word, that we shall be clothed with immortality 
 when done with this mortal life, and through His 
 Son Jesus, the Christ, life and immortality are 
 brought to light, and because He lives I shall live 
 also. 
 
 Charleston, West Va. 
 
 Mrs. Alice Hegan Rice, Author. February 12, 
 1904. 
 
 I do believe, absolutely, in an existence beyond the 
 grave. It is not a matter of reason with me, but of 
 faitH. I believe in an all-wise and merciful God, a 
 God who- takes up the poor broken threads of this life 
 and weaves them into His great design in the world to 
 come. 
 
 Louisville, Ky. 
 
 Miss Frances Campbell Sparhawk, Author, Organ- 
 izer Indian Industries League. March 14, 
 1904. 
 I believe with all my heart in the future life. 
 Nature is full of hints and tokens of changes of form 
 without loss of identity. Electricity, the soul of the 
 earth, clothes itself in many shapes at will. Under 
 many guises is revealed to us that might which is the 
 motive power of matter and which through all forms 
 is the same force. To imagine this life without im- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 67 
 
 mortality is to imagine the earth with no sky over 
 it to vivify it and bring the resurrection of the year 
 from the sleep of winter. Yet of all reasons the deep- 
 est and of all faith the strongest is that by which 
 we of right say to God, "Our Father" and to the risen 
 Christ, u Our Brother." 
 Newton Centre, Mass. 
 
 Hon. A. J. McLaurin, United States Senator from 
 Mississippi. February 15, 1904. 
 
 I cheerfully answer your question: I believe there is 
 an existence beyond the grave. It is as true that there 
 is an eternal life as that there is a God. I have quit 
 arguing that there is a God and a continuation of life 
 beyond this world. The Bible teaches both, and I 
 have no argument for any one who denies the Bible. 
 
 Brandon, Miss. 
 
 Hon. Fenimore Chatterton, Governor of Wyoming. 
 March 7, 1904. 
 
 I regret that I have not time to write at greater 
 length, but in response to your query I desire to say 
 that I most emphatically and unequivocally believe 
 in the immortality of the soul. 
 
 Cheyenne, Wyo. 
 
 Newton H. Winchell, Editor American Geologist, 
 
 Ex-President Geological Society of America. 
 
 May 1, IQ04. 
 
 The existence of almost a universal hope and faith 
 
 in a future life, irrespective of Biblical teaching, is 
 
 one of the strongest evidences of such future life. It 
 
 may be that the spiritual bodies which we shall have 
 
 at the resurrection will be widely different from those 
 
 which we now possess, and so etherealized that, so 
 
 far as we can define them in our limited senses, they 
 
68 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 will consist essentially of consciousness, a subtile inter- 
 action of forces which are entirely elusive to our pres- 
 ent corporeal existence. 
 
 The following was undoubtedly written by my 
 brother, Alexander Winchell, who died in 1891: 
 u The unseen world is destined to become like a newly- 
 discovered continent. We shall visit it; we shall 
 hold communion with it; we shall wonder how so 
 many thousand years could have passed without our 
 being introduced to it. We shall learn of other 
 modes of existence — intermediate, perhaps, between 
 body and spirit — having the forms and limitations 
 in space peculiar to matter, with the penetrability and 
 invisibility of spirit. And who can say that we may 
 not yet obtain such knowledge of the modes of 
 existence of other bodies as to discover the means of 
 rendering them visible to our bodily eyes, as we now 
 hold conversation with a friend upon the shores of 
 the Pacific, or in the heart of Europe, or fly with the 
 superhuman velocity of the wind from the Atlantic 
 to the Mississippi valley? Then may we not at last 
 gaze upon the spiritual bodies in which our departed 
 friends reside, and discover the means of listening to 
 their spirit voices, and join hands consciously with the 
 heavenly host?" 
 
 Minneapolis, Minn. 
 
 Nathan Smith Davis, M. D., A. M., LL.D., Phy- 
 sician, "Father of the American Medical As- 
 sociation." January 22, 1904* 
 I am happy to say I believe that for man there is 
 an endless life beyond the grave, as taught by Jesus 
 Christ and his disciples. And that there is an ever 
 
 *Died 1904. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 69 
 
 living and all wise Creator of the world, as set forth 
 by Moses and the prophets. 
 
 (Note. On the fifth of October, 1901, a testi- 
 monial banquet was given in honor of the venerable 
 Dr. Davis, under the auspices of the Chicago Medi- 
 cal Society, and three hundred and fifty physicians 
 were present. In his speech accepting a beautiful 
 Grecian loving cup, which was inscribed to him as 
 "Pioneer in local and national medical organization, 
 and in graded medical instruction, " the doctor used 
 these words: 
 
 "Never pull down, but build up. You will soon 
 establish harmony; you will soon have cordiality; 
 you will have your own heart free, and your con- 
 science will be right before your God. You will have 
 enemies neither here nor hereafter. I know no ene- 
 mies here to-night; I have no enemies; I am satis- 
 fied with life. I am sometimes lonesome because I so 
 rarely meet one of my early comrades — lonesome 
 because they are gone. But I am going to join them 
 before long. I do not expect to tarry a great while. 
 But I have no care about that. I live so that I am 
 ready each day to go.") 
 
 Chicago, III. 
 
 Mr. Palmer Cox, Artist and Author. January 23, 
 1904. 
 
 Yes, I believe in an existence beyond the grave. 
 That belief was implanted in me at my mother's 
 knee, nourished at my father's family prayers, and 
 strengthened by confirmation and Holy Communion. 
 Time, I am happy to say, only serves to deepen my 
 belief. 
 
 Brownieland (East quo gue t N. Y.) 
 
7 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Robert Grant Aitken, A. M., Astronomer at Lick 
 Observatory, Editor Publications of the Astro- 
 nomical Society of the Pacific. March n, 1904. 
 
 I have no hesitation in declaring myself a firm 
 believer in immortality, though I hardly feel that I 
 am entitled to give evidence from the standpoint of 
 an astronomer, as my faith antedates by many years 
 my connection with an observatory. My belief in a 
 future life is therefore not due to my astronomical 
 studies or observations, for these concern themselves 
 with life only in that broad sense in which motion and 
 change due to the action of physical forces may be 
 considered as life. 
 
 The important point is that my studies have not 
 weakened my faith but, rather, have strengthened 
 it by strengthening my belief in the existence of an 
 Infinite Creative Mind. I cannot believe that the 
 human mind that "thinks the thoughts of God after 
 Him" can be other than immortal. As you see, my 
 confidence rests not upon knowledge, but upon faith. 
 Science has not given and, I think, will never give 
 any answer to the question, u Is man immortal ?" 
 But one who believes that the answer to this question 
 is "Yes," will find his faith grow stronger and not 
 weaker by the study of the heavens, — for to him they 
 declare the glory of God. 
 
 Mt. Hamilton, Cat. 
 
 Andrew J. Montague, B. L., Governor of Virginia. 
 February 27, 1904. 
 
 Replying to your letter, I beg to say that I am a 
 believer in the immortality of the soul. 
 
 If my poor name will be of any service as identify- 
 ing myself with this belief, I shall be thankful. 
 
 Richmond, Fa. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 71 
 
 Hon. Charles B. Aycock, Governor of North Caro- 
 lina. March i } IQ04. 
 
 I am in receipt of your letter, and in reply beg to 
 say that I do believe in immortality. 
 
 Raleigh, N. C. 
 
 Mr. Anthony Cotnstock, Secretary and Special Agent 
 New York Society for Suppression of Vice. 
 January 23, IQ04. 
 
 Your inquiry is received in my sick room, where I 
 have been confined since Dec. 21, 1903. Since that 
 date I have been not only upon the border-land, but 
 down into what seemed to be "the valley of the 
 shadow of death." 
 
 Is there a person living in this fair land of ours 
 that doubts existence beyond the grave ? That is the 
 surprising thing. 
 
 Why do I believe? "For God so loved the world 
 that He sent His only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth on him might not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life." "He that believeth that Jesus Christ is 
 the Son of God hath everlasting life" Jesus Christ 
 said: "In my Father's House are many mansions. 
 If it were not so I would have told you. I go to pre- 
 pare a place for you . . . that where I am, 
 there ye may be also." 
 
 I would as soon doubt my existence here as to 
 doubt a glorified life beyond the grave. "Eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into 
 the heart of man to conceive, the things which God 
 hath in store for them that love Him." There are 
 hundreds of other precious assurances to those who 
 believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. "The fool hath 
 said in his heart, there is no God." 
 
 I have an unwavering faith, joy and confidence in 
 
72 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 the promises of God, and they do not admit of any 
 doubt in my mind. 
 Summit, N. J. 
 
 Hon. Francis M. Cockrell, United States Senator 
 from Missouri, Chairman Committee on En- 
 grossed Bills. January 26, igo^f. 
 I firmly believe in the immortality of the soul, and 
 in a future existence beyond the grave of eternal hap- 
 piness or unending misery, and in our Holy Bible and 
 Christianity as the best guides for our own lives — 
 temporal and eternal. 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz, Author and Lecturer. 
 January 30, IQ04* 
 
 A mutual consideration of any problem should 
 be based on some common ground of agreement; and 
 all will agree that humanity, being a part of the uni- 
 verse, comes under the laws of the universe. 
 
 Now as, owing to the general disorder, these laws 
 cannot be clearly discerned in our human world, we 
 must look for them in the world of Nature, where 
 all proceeds directly from the Infinite, Eternal Life- 
 Source, common to Nature and to Man. 
 
 First is the Law of Life: Everywhere is Life — 
 no vacuum — no inertness. Even what appears solid is 
 the result of forces continually at work. 
 
 Next is the Law of Expression; or Life expressed 
 in varied forms of growth, and — what bears directly 
 on our purpose — Individual Expression. This law 
 holds throughout. Even in a drop of water, each 
 individual part must be itself and the whole of itself, 
 and nothing else. The oak ideas do not enter into 
 
 *Died April 1, 1904. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 73 
 
 the growth of the pine, nor those of the lily into that 
 of the rose. The same distinction holds in the human 
 world. People differ and with marked differences. 
 This personal individuality being the outcome of the 
 Infinite Eternal Life must be itself eternal. 
 
 The real personality of our friends and acquaint- 
 ances is in the mind and heart characteristics. These 
 are all that go to make up the person, for when 
 these are withdrawn, what is left becomes "it/ 1 All 
 that composed the body, — lime, water, chemicals — 
 are just what they are as we know them all around 
 us. The make-up of the real person cannot be thus 
 disintegrated. Nor, as Light cannot know Dark- 
 ness, neither can Life ever know Death. 
 
 Thus the Law of Life, of Life Expressed, and of 
 Life Individually Expressed, must hold even if the 
 fleshly is cast aside. 
 
 See also I. Corinthians XV, 44. "It is sown a 
 natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a 
 natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 
 
 Belmont, Mass. 
 
 Charles Mills Gayley, B. A., Litt. D. } LL.D., Pro- 
 fessor of English, University of California. 
 January 29, 1904. 
 I cherish a hope, but not a belief. My -reason 
 demands a God who in His turn demands creatures to 
 subserve the purposes of His self-realization, who in 
 their turn can realize Him only if they possess free- 
 will and incur responsibility. These characteristics 
 which we do possess imply the possession of unlimited 
 existence as well. But limitation, also, is a necessity 
 of the creature as distinguished from the Creator. 
 It is essential to an eternal Purpose that there should 
 always be a knowledge beyond that which the crea- 
 
74 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 ture has yet attained. Otherwise, he would cease to 
 strive, and the Creator to be realized through him. 
 
 So I recognize the relativity of my reason. My 
 belief of to-day is but a symbol of my hope of yes- 
 terday, an index of my knowledge of to-morrow. I 
 hope for an immortality of the individual, because 
 I recognize an Omniscience within which human rea- 
 son and belief are ever widening. But to believe 
 would be to crystalize the whole process. That truth, 
 goodness and beauty are ideally immortal I know, 
 because otherwise I could not reason at all. 
 
 Berkeley, Cal. 
 
 James E. Creighton, A. B., Ph.D., Professor of 
 Logic and Metaphysics, Cornell University, Ed- 
 itor Philosophical Review. April 15, IQ04. 
 I have at present a book on metaphysics in hand in 
 which I hope to say something regarding the problem 
 of immortality. As yet, however, I have published 
 nothing on the subject. Perhaps I may say that my 
 own convictions are positive, though I have never felt 
 myself fully ready to state the grounds on which they 
 rest. 
 
 Ithaca, N. Y. 
 
 Felix L. Oswald, A. M., M. D., Physician, Author 
 and Naturalist. February 25, IQ04. 
 Bright gleams are sometimes vouchsafed to the 
 children of poverty whose bits of fun have been 
 trampled out week after week, till disappointment at 
 last acts as a collapse of all that could make life worth 
 living; but who, like Swift's Honyhnhnms, cling to 
 the hope of a "Return to first Mother," — their kind 
 Mother Nature, of whose beaming face they have 
 caught glimpses in sunlit woods. Though u They 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 75 
 
 are bullied to forget, Yet her bright smile haunts 
 them still." 
 
 "I wish I could fly; I'd go where my mother is," 
 I heard a poor orphan boy say, when a virago had 
 slapped his face, and he stood out on a balcony to 
 watch the birds flying south. And I am greatly mis- 
 taken if a plurality of the 14,000 children who are 
 murdered every year in New York City and Philadel- 
 phia by the suppression of popular pastimes on the 
 day when ninety-nine of a hundred wage-earners find 
 their only chance for leisure — if a great plurality of 
 those refugees do not depart this life with a vague 
 hope of a transfer to the haunts of bluebirds and but- 
 terflies, in some region where their mirth cannot be 
 interrupted by the howl of bigots." 
 
 (Note. Dr. Oswald, who kindly took great inter- 
 est in this compilation, did not approve, however, of 
 its being confined to contributions postulating the 
 certainty of a personal resurrection." "It might be 
 made," he said, "the success of the twentieth cen- 
 tury, without the slightest danger of modern read- 
 ers misconstruing your purpose of preparing a thrill- 
 ing effect in the contrast of non-theological visions") . 
 
 Springfield, Mass. 
 
 From St. Clair McKelway, A. M., LL.D., L. H. D., 
 D. C. L. t Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle. March 
 
 9> 1904- 
 I believe in the resurrection of the dead and in the 
 life everlasting. I do not believe in them by a process 
 of argument, but because I find them in the Bible, 
 which my heart and mind tell me I should believe and 
 which, for that reason, I do believe. 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
76 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Richard Watson Jones, A. M., LL.D., Professor of 
 Chemistry, University of Mississippi. Febru- 
 ary 26, IQ04. 
 I accept fully the Apostle's Creed. I believe in 
 u the resurrection of the body and everlasting life." 
 I have been a student and teacher of science for 
 twenty-eight years; but nothing in science has ever 
 shaken my belief in the immortality of man. Our 
 aspirations, our highest ideals, our hopes, all point 
 to a future life. "For if we believe that Jesus died 
 and rose again, even so them also which sleep in 
 Jesus will God bring with Him." 
 University P. O., Miss. 
 
 Mrs. Alice Morse Earle, Author. February 7, 
 1904. 
 
 You ask whether I believe that "there is an exis- 
 tence beyond the grave." I do not "believe" it — I 
 know it! 
 
 Aside from any religious regard of your subject 
 (which I do not care to express in public) I know 
 there is an existence after death, because there was 
 one before birth — and the latter state I remember. 
 Existence after death is as positive a fact to- me as 
 existence at present — more so perhaps; for in great 
 distress of mind I have for a short time felt uncertain 
 as to whether I were now living. 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 Hon. James H. Berry, United States Senator from 
 Arkansas. January 25, 1904. 
 
 Yes, I believe in existence beyond the grave, and 
 in the Presbyterian religion as my mother taught 
 me. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 77 
 
 Mr. Philip C. Garrett, Retired Manufacturer ', Presi- 
 dent Board of Public Charities of Pennsylvania, 
 also of State Lunacy Commission. February 3, 
 
 I surely believe in a life hereafter; in other words, 
 in a Soul, and in its deathless character. "The things 
 which are seen are temporal, the things which are not 
 seen are eternal. " My conviction of this truth would 
 rest sufficiently on the theory of the immortality of 
 God himself, a theory which is inseparable from my 
 idea of his character as the omnipresent, omnipotent 
 and omniscient Being, the source of all life. We are 
 his offspring; "God is a Spirit ;" and as emana- 
 tions from the everlasting and inexhaustible fountain, 
 we participate in his immortality. 
 
 This is not materialism. It is not pantheism, for 
 there is but the "One God over all, blessed forever. " 
 I do not deny the indestructibility of matter either, 
 but that is quite a different question from that of the 
 immortality of the Soul or Spirit. When we read 
 that u God created man in His own image," we do 
 not understand it to be the material form : that 
 followed the laws of chemistry into the grass above 
 the grave, and the cattle that graze upon it, and the 
 trees whose "fibers net the dreamless head. Their 
 roots are wrapped around the bones." But we may 
 well believe the resemblance in which man was made 
 was to the undying Spirit of whose essence he too was 
 a part, "Bright effluence of bright essence increate." 
 To me it seems that the beauty and solemnity of an 
 invisible and simple theory of the universe like this 
 is unsurpassable, and that the immortality of the Soul 
 is a logical part of it. 
 
 Such, broadly stated, without elaboration, is my 
 conception of the cosmos, and of the infinite over-rul- 
 ing Lord. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
78 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Mrs. Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland, Author and Play- 
 zvright. March II, IQ04. 
 
 My faith in immortality is as fixed as my faith in 
 the rising of to-morrow's sun. Why, in a world in 
 which nothing is lost, should that be lost which is 
 holiest — love and faith, and the bonds that unite 
 human hearts, and the hope of a life or larger oppor- 
 tunities, in which we grow to what we, blindly, in this 
 our world of the "low skies and the short days," know 
 past contradicting to be the true stature of humanity? 
 The hope of immortality is in every human soul. The 
 tradition of immortality is in every religion revealed 
 to mankind. The savage tells the missionary of a 
 life beyond death. It is the only function of the 
 missionary to raise in the savage mind worthy aspira- 
 tions to merit such life. The fact that such an ideal 
 as that of a loftier life could survive in every nation 
 and through every age is proof enough, if proof were 
 needed, that the fulfilment of that hope waits near 
 at hand. To implant such a hope, and then to baffle 
 and to mock it — that surely were what Madame de 
 Stael calls u unimaginable irony on the part of God." 
 
 Boston. Mass. 
 
 Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix, President American Bank- 
 ers' Association. March g, 1904* 
 
 Through every generation a stream of religion 
 flows. Its source is in human hope, its channel human 
 faith, and its destination — eternal life beyond the 
 grave. The soul of man has the instinct of immor- 
 tality, which grips the future as the love of life grips 
 the present. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 *Died November 9, 1904. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 79 
 
 Adam H. Fettei-olf, A. M., Ph.D., LL.D., Presi- 
 dent Girard College. February 18, 1904. 
 
 While I am a firm believer in the doctrine of the 
 immortality of the soul, or the life hereafter, I do not 
 feel that I could say anything new on the subject. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Hon. Eugene V . Debs, Lecturer and Organizer. Feb- 
 ruary 6, IQ04. 
 
 The question you ask is a large and serious one, 
 and it is doubtful if in the hurry of the moment I can 
 make myself intelligible to you and your readers. I 
 am so busy with the affairs of this life, so much con- 
 cerned with the wrongs that exist here, with the suf- 
 fering that prevails now, and so* profoundly im- 
 pressed with the sense of duty I owe myself and my 
 fellowman here and now, that I have little time to 
 think of what lies beyond the grave; and but for the 
 earnestness so apparent in your letter, I should feel 
 obliged to decline the attempt to answer a question 
 which at best must still remain unanswered. 
 
 The most philosophic minds have thus far failed 
 to demonstrate the immortality of human life, and 
 yet the normal human being, the wide world over, be 
 he learned or ignorant, wise or foolish, good or evil, 
 longs for, yearns for, hungers and hopes for, if he 
 does not actually believe in life everlasting, and this 
 seems to me to present the strongest proof that 
 immortality is a fact in nature. 
 
 There are many truths which are not demonstra- 
 ble to the physical senses, and yet they are so obvious 
 and self-evident that it were folly to attempt to deny 
 or contradict them. 
 
 Coming more directly to your question as to 
 whether I, my personal, identical, conscious self, shall 
 continue to live after my body goes back to dust, I 
 
80 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 confess I do not know, nor do I know of any means 
 of knowing; but as I, in that narrow capacity am 
 infinitesimally insignificant, it is a question which does 
 not greatly concern me. 
 
 I believe firmly, however, in the immortal life of 
 humanity as a whole, and as my little life merges into 
 and becomes an elementary part of that infinitely 
 larger life, I may and in fact do feel secure in the 
 faith and belief in immortality. 
 
 Men are small, but man is tall as God Himself. 
 
 The universal life is eternal and will enrich and 
 glorify the world with its divinity after all the planets 
 wheel dead in space. 
 
 Chicago, III. 
 
 Mr. Eben E. Rexford, Author. February i8, igo^. 
 
 I do believe in an existence beyond the grave. But 
 just why I do is not an easy question to answer. It 
 seems to me that one of the strongest arguments in 
 favor of such an existence is the intuitive belief which 
 is common to most of us, in a measure, concerning 
 it. Training and environment will not account 
 wholly for such a belief. The belief is in us } and it is 
 there because there is a reason for it. God made the 
 eye because there are things for it to see. He made 
 our faith in a future life because there is a future life. 
 This may not be logical reasoning, but it is quite as 
 good reasoning as that of most persons who argue 
 against a future existence. 
 
 Shiocton, Wis. 
 
 Col. Alexander P. Ketchum, M. A., Lawyer. Feb- 
 ruary 14, IQ04. 
 From my earliest youth I have been a believer in 
 the Bible, and have derived great comfort from its 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 81 
 
 promises, among the most cheering of which, to me, 
 is that of a life to come. 
 
 Advancing years have strengthened my faith in 
 this assurance. I feel that it must be true. It har- 
 monizes with my conception of an all-wise, forgiving 
 and benevolent Creator, and with the natural long- 
 ings and aspirations of the human heart. It gives 
 an importance to the present life, which it would 
 otherwise not seem to possess. 
 
 "What are we here for?" would be a question 
 harder to answer than it is, had we not the hope of 
 immortality, with its larger sphere and possible hap- 
 piness. The problem of human existence we cannot 
 solve; but, to my mind, its solution becomes much 
 easier upon the theory of a life beyond the grave than 
 upon that of annihilation at death. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Miss Matae B. Cleveland, Ex-President National 
 Association of Business Women. March 14, 
 
 I will only state my most earnest belief in immor- 
 tality, without which the significance of life would be 
 lost to me. 
 
 Chicago, III. 
 
 Warren K. Moorehead, A. M., Archaeologist, Cura- 
 tor Department of Archaeology, Phillips 
 Academy. February 15, IQ04. 
 
 I fear that my views on immortality would be of 
 little interest to the general public. They may be 
 dismissed with the statement that I believe in the 
 Scriptures from u cover to cover." If every one took 
 this view there would be no arguments apropos of 
 religious matters. 
 
 Andover, Mass. 
 
82 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Mr. Jacob A. Riis, Author and Reformer. Febru- 
 ary 6, 1904. 
 
 The man who doesn't believe that there is an "ex- 
 istence beyond the grave" must be a sorry fool who 
 never thinks beyond his need of filling his belly. The 
 "grave" is the beginning, not the end of life. Pity 
 the one who doesn't know it. 
 
 Richmond Hill, N. Y. 
 
 Mr. William J. Kirkpatrick, Composer, Editor of 
 song books. February 4, 1904. 
 
 Replying to your question, Do I believe there is an 
 existence beyond the grave, I will say emphatically, 
 yes ! I know of no good reason to doubt it. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Melville D. Landon, A.M., ( ({ Eli Perkins") Humor- 
 ist and Lecturer, President New York News As- 
 sociation. April 17, 1904. 
 
 Not only are our souls immortal, but everything, 
 material or spiritual, is immortal. 
 
 We say the material man dies. He dies and is 
 transformed into earth. This earth is transformed 
 into* vegetation, cereals and fruits. Other men are 
 born and eat the fruit and cereals. Nothing actually 
 dies. It evolutes. This is immaterial immortality. 
 
 The warm ocean saturates the dry land and air 
 with moisture. Striking the cold dry land, this mois- 
 ture is condensed into rain. The land sucks up the 
 water, the trees drink it, the sun sucks it out of the 
 trees, and when the wet air cools the water drips out 
 in rain and runs back to the sea again. It is immor- 
 tal, like the soul. 
 
 The soul is invisible imagination, love, compassion, 
 sympathy, joy and sorrow. 
 
 The thpught of soul immediately kills the sting of 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 83 
 
 so-called Death. The thought that, if we are good 
 and just and happy here in this world, we will be bet- 
 ter, juster and happier in Heaven makes the good 
 hail the departure for Heaven with joy. 
 
 u Do unto others" is the key to a happy immortali- 
 ty. It makes the pure and just long for translation — 
 translation to that place where the soul evolutes into 
 perfection and joy, where we will keep every law of 
 nature. 
 
 Do not take away from me the thought that if I 
 am good in this world, I shall be happy in the next ! 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Hon. Albert B. White, Governor of West Virginia. 
 February g } 1904. 
 I certainly believe in an existence beyond the grave. 
 Parkersburg, West Va. 
 
 Capt. Charles B. Parsons, Ship Broker. February 
 15, 1904. 
 
 My whole life has been so firmly and completely 
 interwoven with a belief in the immortality of the 
 soul, and in my contact with men, those who do not 
 entertain such views have been such rare exceptions, 
 that the admission of the question of a future exist- 
 ence seems almost a surprise. My early home educa- 
 tion laid the foundation for my faith in the resur- 
 rection, which faith has been strengthened by my 
 experience of four years of active army life during 
 the Civil War; by twenty-five years of sea-faring 
 life, as a master of sea-going vessels in both the 
 domestic and foreign trade; and by fifteen years of 
 active life as a business man in a large city. 
 
 During these years there has been much to 
 strengthen and confirm my religious belief, while 
 there has been nothing tending to question or weaken 
 
84 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 the faith which enables me to say, "I know that my 
 Redeemer liveth," etc., Job XIX, 25. 
 New York City. 
 
 Mr. John Mitchell, National President United Mine 
 Workers of America. February 18, IQ04. 
 
 While I am not a communicant of any particular 
 church, I have an abiding faith in the immortality of 
 the soul, and I believe in and make an effort to live up 
 to the Golden Rule. 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 Mrs. Susan Cotton Morris, mother of Henry Critten- 
 den Morris. March 22, IQ04. 
 
 From infancy, I may say for over sixty years, the 
 firm belief in the immortality of the soul has been my 
 guardian angel, giving not only peace to my mind, 
 but comfort to those around me. In proof of this I 
 send you some of my thoughts, and if you care to use 
 any of the verses I shall be glad to have you do so. 
 Those entitled "Belief in Immortality," were com- 
 posed at the deathbed of my dear friend, Countess 
 Wilbeau, nee Milbeau, twin sister of Mme. Badeau. 
 These words came in a flash across my mind. A 
 copy was put in the coffin of the countess at Ostende, 
 Belgium. 
 
 BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 
 
 I am one of the angels, my child, 
 
 Who chanted at thy birth, 
 Luring thee with sympathy most mild 
 
 From the sorrows of earth. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 85 
 
 Cast then thy burdens upon me, 
 
 Lean on my outstretched arm, 
 There is glory e'en now around thee, 
 
 There comes no earthly harm. 
 
 In heaven's brightest star 
 
 Behold thy saintly place; 
 With pure love from afar 
 
 Beams thy Saviour's face. 
 
 Lull'd now are thy sorrows, 
 
 Quieted are thy pains, 
 For thee dawn new to-morrows 
 
 Where peace eternal reigns. 
 Chicago, III. 
 
 Col. Henry F. Bowers, Founder and Ex-President 
 of the American Protective Association. March 
 
 9, 1904- ■ . . TT 
 
 I take pleasure in referring you to Genesis II. 7, 
 
 wherein it is declared, u And the Lord God formed 
 man of dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos- 
 trils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." 
 Also, Ecclesiastes, XII. 7 : "Then shall the dust 
 return to' the earth as it was, and the spirit shall 
 return unto God who gave it." This comprehends 
 the whole question — the Genesis and the End of 
 man. The life and spirit is one and the same. 
 
 We have the promise also under certain conditions 
 if we fear not: "Be thou faithful unto death and I 
 will give thee a crown of life." Revelations, II. 10. 
 Again, we find in the One Hundred and Thirty-third 
 Psalm, third verse, the following: "As the dew of 
 Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the 
 mountain of Zion, for these the Lord commanded 
 the blessing, even life for evermore." 
 
86 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 There are many more assurances of a life after 
 death, of a spiritual form, but not of a resurrection of 
 the body. Therefore we need not confound the sub- 
 ject by assuming that there are not two distinct bod- 
 ies dwelling in union until death intervenes. Then 
 the body goes to the dust, and the spiritual form to 
 God who gave it. This is the life after death. The 
 analysis of this, our compound existence, shows 
 clearly that the body, or that which is created of the 
 dust of the ground, returns to the earth. This much 
 we see and know. Then, knowing this to be true, 
 why is it not equally true that the spirit, (which is the 
 life breathed into the nostrils at creation) returns to 
 God who gave it ? We know when the body is laid 
 to rest that the life, the light, the spirit has gone 
 forth to an ever-existing life after forsaking the body. 
 Yes, I believe this. I can see no reason to harbor a 
 single doubt. 
 
 Clinton, Iowa. 
 
 J. M. Peebles, M. D., A. M., Editor, Physician. 
 February 20, 1904. 
 
 I was formerly quite an agnostic upon the subject 
 of immortality, but the study of mesmerism, hypnot- 
 ism, trances and vision — in a word, the higher spirit- 
 ism gave me a knowledge of the life hereafter. 
 
 Reason leads to it. The conservation of forces 
 proves that nothing is lost. There is no such thing as 
 annihilation ; that is, the transformation of substance 
 or something into nothing. It is very evident that 
 if nothing cannot become something or substance, the 
 converse is true that substance cannot become noth- 
 ing. We are all conscious, substantial beings, and if 
 we are ever less than this the universe has suffered a 
 loss, and the conservation of forces is absolutely false, 
 and science is a failure. I may add to this that I 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 87 
 
 have held conscious converse with the dwellers in the 
 spirit world for fifty years. This is to me positive 
 knowledge, and if human beings exist beyond the 
 grave, as I know they do, immortality follows as a 
 natural sequence. 
 Battle Creek, Mich. 
 
 Miss Kate Sanborn, Author and Lecturer. Febru- 
 ary 14, IQ04. 
 
 I believe, not in the resurrection of the body we 
 now know, but in a spiritual body and life everlasting, 
 a life of work that is worship; progression, and a 
 constant unfolding of the great Creator's plans. From 
 universe to universe u there is no end." 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Will Carleton, A. M., Litt.D., Author and Lecturer, 
 Editor of Everywhere. January 23, IQ04. 
 
 In response to yours of late date. The longer I 
 live, the more proof I find of future existence. 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 Mr. Frank Edwin Elwell, Sculptor, Curator Depart- 
 ment of Ancient and Modern Statuary, Metro- 
 politan Museum of Art. January 22, IQ04. 
 
 If there is a conscious present, there certainly must 
 be a past, and if a past there is a future, or hereafter. 
 It does not need argument or even thought to prove 
 that the steady march of life is incessant and largely 
 unaccounted for by cellular cerebration from the 
 brain. 
 
 We are representations of some form of use in the 
 make up of the universe. The greater the real use, 
 the finer the real result. 
 
 Rewards and punishments are not necessary in 
 the comprehension of the great plan of things. We 
 
88 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 advance or retard our growth in just proportion to 
 our true or false attitude toward the use performed 
 in the work of the universe. No one may know what 
 a real use is except by that human feel that registers 
 every right thought and action ; finally excluding the 
 base and the false by the same process. The belief 
 in a purely spiritual hereafter is an excellent police- 
 man for a large mass of undeveloped humanity. But 
 character and right conduct, one toward another, is 
 of far greater use in the life of humanity as we find 
 it on this planet. 
 New York City. 
 
 Hon. Charles N. Herreid, Governor of South Da- 
 kota. March 7, 1904. 
 Yes, I believe in immortality. Permit me to quote 
 the following from Tennyson's "In Memoriam:" 
 
 "Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 
 Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
 
 By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
 Believing where we cannot prove; 
 
 Thine are these orbs of light and shade; 
 Thou madest Life; 
 
 Thou madest Death; . . . 
 
 "Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: 
 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why, 
 
 He thinks he was not made to die ; 
 
 And Thou hast made him: Thou art just." 
 Pierre, S. D. 
 
 Prof. John G. Lemmon, Botanical Explorer and Col- 
 lector. March 19, 1904. 
 Dr. C. C. Parry, the distinguished botanist, wrote 
 a beautiful letter to me, upon the occasion of the 
 death of my dear little mother, from which I quote : 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 89 
 
 "It is, to my mind, one of the best evidences of a 
 future life and of renewed association, that we are 
 never ready to give up our associates, even when they 
 have passed the allotted period of life. We cling 
 to them because the association is not complete — 
 rather only just begun. So we do right to remember 
 and hope." 
 
 Oakland, Cal. 
 
 Mrs. Sara A. P. Lemmon, Botanist and Artist. 
 March iq, IQ04. 
 
 My leading thought of the future life is based on 
 the quality of immortality that must come through 
 character-building, — that which is evolved by the 
 needed spirit-food which includes everything that 
 calls for resistance or will power against the lower 
 nature by the higher spiritual nature. This process 
 develops character-strength, which appeals to me as 
 the high quality of immortality. 
 
 Oakland, Cal. 
 
 Mrs. Donald McLean, Regent New York City Chap- 
 ter, D. A. R. February iq, igo4. 
 
 In response to your letter I would reply simply: 
 I do believe in immortality. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 John B. Peaslee, A. M., Ph.D., Educator and 
 Author, {the originator of u Arbor Day" and 
 "Author Day" in the public schools) . February 
 1$, 1904. 
 The doubts that came over me in my college days 
 all vanished in my maturer years, and I am now abso- 
 lutely convinced that there is an existence beyond the 
 grave. 
 
9 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 
 
 For all the world I would not lose 
 
 My faith in Christ the Lord; 
 For all the world I would not part 
 
 With Jesus and His word. 
 For all the world, I would not live 
 
 Rebellious to His will ; 
 Though all mankind should Him forsake, 
 
 Fll bide with Jesus still. 
 
 For when my parting hour shall come, 
 
 The Lord will take me home, 
 To dwell among the sainted host, 
 
 Around the heavenly throne. 
 And when this world is wrecked in years, 
 
 My spirit made divine 
 "Shall flourish in immortal youth," 
 
 Beyond the bounds of time. 
 Cincinnati, O. 
 
 Hon. Joseph K. Toole, Governor of Montana. Feb- 
 ruary 13, IQ04. 
 
 Replying to your letter asking for an expression 
 from me on the subject of immortality, I will say 
 without entering ito details or reasons for my belief, 
 that I have long cherished the idea of an existence 
 beyond the grave. Nothing in the physical or scien- 
 tific world coming under my observation has ever 
 shaken my confidence in this firm belief. 
 
 Helena, Mont. 
 
 Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, Composer. March ig, igof. 
 
 It is impossible for me to give to the public my 
 
 most intimate thoughts and feelings upon so vast a 
 
 subject as this; but I am willing to express my firm 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 91 
 
 belief in the continuation of life beyond the grave. 
 My reasons must remain known only to myself. 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Miss Henrietta Crosman, Actress. January 22, 
 1904. 
 I most surely do believe in a life beyond the grave. 
 New York City. 
 
 Major JV. M. Beach, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A. 
 Isthmian Canal Commission. February 5, 1904. 
 
 In answer to your inquiry I would say that I have 
 a firm belief in continued existence or, as it is gener- 
 ally termed, life beyond the grave. 
 
 Culebra, Republic of Panama. 
 
 William Rainey Harper, Ph.D., LL.D., President 
 of the University of Chicago* 
 
 "I am going before my work is finished. I do not 
 know where I am going, but I hope my work will go 
 on. I expect to continue work in the future state, for 
 this is only a small part of the glorious whole." 
 
 Chicago, III. 
 
 *Died Jan. 10, 1906. 
 
PART II 
 EXTRACTS 
 
Hamilton Wright Mabie, A. M. } L. H. D., LL.B., 
 LL.D., Associate Editor of the Outlook, in 
 "The Life of the Spirit." 
 
 THE INCIDENT OF DEATH 
 
 WE live in a vast order which not only 
 enfolds us but touches us every mo- 
 ment through a thousand forces and 
 appearances; but so familiar is the 
 aspect of things which surround us 
 that only at rare moments do we 
 become conscious of this larger movement in which 
 all lesser movements are included. We have only to 
 look at the sky to read the sublime evidence that we 
 are citizens not only of this little world, but of the 
 immeasurable universe as well; we have only to 
 watch the rise and fall of the tides to discover afresh 
 the unity which binds star with star across the vast 
 distances of space. The earth lives moment by 
 moment because it is folded in the light and heat and 
 movement of the universe. Every flower that blooms, 
 however delicate and fragile, unfolds at the bidding 
 of another world than that in which its roots are 
 planted; every cloud that floats across the loveliness 
 of the summer day is soft and luminous because the 
 light of another world touches its innermost haze. 
 We are affected hour by hour by these remote influ- 
 ences ; we are confronted day by day by the splendor 
 of the universe; and yet we are often unconscious of 
 these larger relations ! 
 
 And it is well that we should be; for our work 
 for the day is here; and there are times when the 
 
 (95) 
 
96 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 doing of that work is the absorbing duty to which 
 everything else must give place. When the harvest 
 is ripe and the time of reaping short, a man does well 
 to think only of the field, and to leave the landscape 
 for more favorable days. There are days for the 
 field, and days for the landscape; days when one 
 must surrender himself entirely to the work in hand ; 
 and days when one must search the universe and bring 
 his life into harmony with its laws. 
 
 There are near duties and remote relations; for 
 life is made up of the visible material and the invisi- 
 ble force; of words and deeds and emotions which 
 concern passing circumstances and the temporary con- 
 dition, and of other words, deeds, and emotions 
 which are evoked by convictions regarding the unseen, 
 the invisible, and the eternal. There is no deep life 
 for any man unless he lays hold, in thought, imagina- 
 tion, and faith, of the unseen spiritual universe; there 
 is no real life for any man unless he grasps with clear 
 discernment and steady will the conditions which sur- 
 round him. The problem which a man must solve is 
 to bring the power of faith in the unseen order to 
 which his spirit is allied to bear in dealing with the 
 material world to which his body is akin. So familiar 
 is this visible world of work and duty and human ties 
 that, though a man believe in the invisible spiritual 
 order, it is often difficult for him to rest in it and live 
 by it; as difficult as it is for him to feel the reality of 
 the universe when his hands and thought are ab- 
 sorbed in the field where the harvest waits for his 
 reaping. 
 
 Sometimes these wider connections of his life are 
 suddenly brought to his consciousness by an unusual 
 event in the spiritual world. An observer has made 
 record of the extraordinary impression made upon 
 him while watching an eclipse from the summit of 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 97 
 
 the Rigi. Looking down on that noble landscape 
 at midday, he saw it darkened by the vast shadow 
 of the moon passing over the sun's disc and moving 
 across field and lake and mountain as if it were oblit- 
 erating the earth. Here was a visible result of inter- 
 planetary action; a sudden and convincing demon- 
 stration of the kinship of star with star. Across the 
 quiet landscape of the earth a shadow from the uni- 
 verse seemed to be silently flung. 
 
 In like manner, in great and unusual experiences, 
 the vastness of man's life is sometimes impressively 
 brought home, and on the instant eternal-relations 
 blot out time-relations; the prospective of time is 
 exchanged for the perspective of eternity, and a man 
 sees events in their real relations and order. This 
 is especially true of that mysterious experience which 
 we call death. As the days come and go in the cus- 
 tomary course of work and duty and love, death 
 seems like an awful discord. When it comes to those 
 who stand near us, it seems like an inexplicable inter- 
 ruption of the order of life; a swift and irrational 
 interference with work and development ; and awful 
 and, sometimes, a brutal severing of ties tender and 
 sensitive and sacred. Looking at it from the stand- 
 point of the years in which we live, death is inexplic- 
 able ; we cannot make ready for it nor explain it, nor 
 reconcile ourselves to it. It is only as we rise out of 
 the visible into the invisible order that we can make 
 room for it and give it place. We often accept it 
 with submissive faith; we rarely recognize it as a 
 passing incident in an unbroken and endless life. 
 
 There are moments, however, when the depth and 
 greatness of the experience through which we are 
 passing suddenly sets our little earth in the shining 
 order of the immeasurable universe — and then death 
 has no terrors; it becomes, indeed, so unimportant 
 
98 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 in comparison with the ends we are seeking that we 
 do not give it so much as a thought. In that exaltation 
 of emotion, that clarity of vision, it takes its place 
 with all the other normal and inevitable happenings 
 of life. The perspective of eternity is suddenly sub- 
 stituted for that time, and a man becomes conscious 
 of the power and unity of an endless life. 
 
 Schiller said that death must be a blessing because 
 it is universal ; we may put it out of mind and ignore 
 its presence, but no man escapes it. And when we 
 remember how many men resent it as an interference 
 with their plans, or dread it as the opening of a door 
 into a room from which no voice comes back, it is 
 surprising that men meet this supreme experience so 
 calmly. For the vast majority of men and women 
 meet death not indeed with welcoming glances, but 
 with quiet courage. Dr. Johnson lived in terror of 
 death, but when the final hour came he fell asleep like 
 a tired child. In that last hour the vision broadens 
 to take in the sweep of life and to recognize death, 
 neither as the end nor even as the interruption of the 
 natural order, but as a normal incident. This dila- 
 tion of the imagination, this swift substitution of 
 eternal for time relations, is almost invariably accom- 
 plished in moments of peril. Whenever a crisis comes 
 which makes us aware that many things are worth 
 more than life to us, we suddenly see persons, events, 
 and possessions in true perspective. There is no hes- 
 itation or uncertainty in that moment of clear vision ; 
 we die for those we love with the deep joy which 
 a spiritual opportunity always brings with it. On 
 the field of battle, on the deck of the cruiser, men do 
 not take death into account. In the supreme moment, 
 when love of country, of honor, of heroism, absorbs 
 the whole energy of a man's spirit, death is of no 
 rrore account than an obstacle on the highway or 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 99 
 
 the sting of a bee in the fields. It is an incident in a 
 great experience, not the end of a career. There is a 
 tonic quality in the indifference of men to death in 
 great moments. For while civilization is to be meas- 
 ured by its care for human life, the greatness of a 
 man, an age, or a race is to be measured by indiffer< 
 ence to death. 
 
 The sense of incompleteness clings to the tragic as 
 closely as to the fortunate happenings of life. Noth- 
 ing is ever complete in one's experience; in every joy 
 there is something which cannot be seized, and every 
 great sorrow has its prophetic afterthoughts. We 
 are never able to rest in desolation as a finality; the 
 seeds of a new order are sown in every overthrow of 
 the old. The hurricane is no sooner past than nature 
 begins to rebuild; the walls are hardly down before 
 the ivy silently steals up the broken lines and covers 
 the wreck with a beauty which is like a mantle of 
 charity. No destruction is final; everything con- 
 tains the potency of a further life; the mortal is 
 everywhere penetrated with immortality. To Demos- 
 thenes the fall of Athens was a final catastrophe ; in 
 reality it was the beginning of that leadership which 
 has no limits of time and which runs to the ends of 
 the earth. Even in those appalling tragedies which 
 leave the stage like a night without a star the imagi- 
 nation is unable to rest in what it sees ; it inevitably 
 searches for the light which it feels is approaching 
 below or beyond the horizon. The culminating catas- 
 trophe of "King Lear," the most colossal of all mod- 
 ern tragedies, somehow clears the air; we feel that 
 at last the storm has spent its force, that the singing 
 of the birds will be heard again, and out of the wreck 
 of the shattered world a new world will arise. More 
 than this : we feel that the end is not yet, but that on 
 
ioo WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 some other stage Lear and Cordelia are to come to 
 their own. 
 
 This prophetic quality in life has its source in the 
 structure of things. In the career of Christ it issues 
 out of his very nature. He is inexplicable if one 
 attempts to explain him in terms of mortality and 
 finiteness. He was in the world, but he was not of it. 
 His contracts were with a larger environment; He 
 acted with reference to ends which were beyond the 
 limits of time ; He taught a truth which would have 
 been the most colossal of falsehoods if there had been 
 no indestructible spiritual order; He lived as seeing 
 that which is invisible. The moment we come into 
 his presence we are aware of forces, ends, aims, and a 
 spirit which were not born in this world and do not 
 belong to it. Prophecy issued also out of all the 
 great events of Christ's life. The song of the angels, 
 the voice at the baptism, the agony in the garden, the 
 sublime anguish of Calvary, would have been inex- 
 plicable without the light which was reflected back 
 upon them by the angels at the open tomb on the 
 morning of the resurrection. Such a nature and such 
 a life were not formed and fashioned within the nar- 
 row limits of time and space; they brought infinity 
 and immortality within the confines of the world. 
 Alone among men, Christ has visibly put on immor- 
 tality ; but that sublime truth does not rest on the res- 
 urrection; it rests in the very structure of man's 
 nature and life. Neither is comprehensible without 
 it; neither is ever complete in itself; both affirm its 
 reality and predict its fuller disclosure. The risen 
 Christ does not stand solitary in a vast circle of 
 unopened graves ; He is the visible witness to the sub- 
 lime truth that the grave has no victory and death no 
 sting; for life and immortality are one and the same. 
 
 New York City. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 101 
 
 Mrs. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Author, in "Jane 
 Field." 
 
 "There's a good many queer things in this world," 
 rejoined Amanda with a sigh. "I guess there is," 
 said Mrs. Babcock. "Now you can just look round 
 this room, an' see all the things that belonged to your 
 folks that's dead an' gone, and it seems almost as 
 if they was immortal instead of them. An' it's goin' 
 to be jest the same way with us; the clothes that's 
 hangin' up in our closets are goin' to outlast us. Well, 
 there's one thing about it — this world aint our abidin' 
 place." 
 
 Metuchen, N. J. 
 
 W. W. Keen, M. D., LL.D., Surgeon, Ex-President 
 American Surgical Association, Honorary Fel- 
 low Royal College Surgeons of England and of 
 Deutsche Gesellschaft Chirurgie, in the Out- 
 look. 
 
 THE CHEERFULNESS OF DEATH 
 
 Most people, even most Christian people, shrink 
 from Death. In sermons and hymns, and in literature, 
 it is generally represented as repulsive. It is spoken 
 of as "Death's Cold Stream," "The Last Enemy," 
 the "Dark Valley of the Shadow of Death," and the 
 "terrors of death" are pictured in vivid terms. For 
 the Christian at least, this is all wrong. Death should 
 be in reality his best friend; welcomed rather than 
 feared. 
 
 So far as the physical aspect of death is concerned, 
 the universal teaching of physicians is that the pro- 
 cess of dying is rarely painful or even unwelcome to 
 the patient, though full of sorrow to his family. A 
 happy unconsciousness in nearly all cases shields the 
 
102 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 dying man from pain. The weakness, the fever, the 
 parched lips, the labored breathing, are all unfelt. 
 Most people die quietly and often almost impercepti- 
 bly. 
 
 "We thought her dying when she slept, 
 And sleeping when she died," 
 
 is often true. Even when convulsive movements 
 occur, they are entirely independent of conscious- 
 ness; merely physical in origin and character, and 
 absolutely unattended by any suffering. 
 
 If, then, death is not an unpleasant process phys- 
 ically, why should it be feared from the spiritual side ? 
 See what it does for the Christian. 
 
 It frees him from accident, sickness, and suffer- 
 ing, to which his body has been liable all his life, and 
 from which he has often suffered, sometimes intensely 
 and for long periods of time. 
 
 It frees him from all sorrow. No one who has 
 reached even adolescence escapes sorrow. To many, 
 sorrows are multiplied many fold and bear down even 
 the stoutest heart. The "weary" and the "heavy 
 laden" make up the mass of mankind. 
 
 It opens the gates of heaven to him. While we 
 know nothing accurately of the details of the heav- 
 enly life, we do know that there we shall live in eter- 
 nal bliss; there we shall be in the presence of God 
 himself; there we shall see and know intimately our 
 Lord Jesus Christ; there we shall feel the influence 
 of the Holy Spirit ; there we shall meet the saints of 
 all ages; there we shall be reunited to the dear ones 
 who have happily preceded us; there shall come in 
 due time the dear ones we have left on earth ; there 
 our minds will expand beyond our present comprehen- 
 sion; there all the unsolved problems of earth will 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 103 
 
 be as clear as day; there we shall learn why per- 
 plexity, disappointment and trouble were needful for 
 the orderly and sufficient development of our own 
 character, and of God's large plans not only for us, 
 but for the race; there, in a word, all that is evil 
 shall vanish away and all that is good shall be ours 
 forever. 
 
 If death, then, is not a painful, unpleasant process, 
 and if it does for us so much, it should be, not the 
 last enemy, but our best friend; nor dreaded as the 
 messenger of evil, but welcomed as a companion who 
 will lead us into paths of pleasantness and reveal to 
 us the joys for which we have been longing all our 
 lives. We should not speak of the terrors of death, 
 but should feel in our very hearts the cheerfulness 
 of death. 
 
 Philadelphia , Pa. 
 
 Henry Mills Alden, L. H. D. } Editor Harper's Mag- 
 azine, in "A Study of Death." 
 
 THE MYSTICAL VISION 
 
 . Our usual regard of death is one which 
 brings into the foreground its accidental aspects, not 
 pertinent to its essential reality. Even our grief 
 for dear ones taken from us dwells upon our loss, 
 upon the difference to us which death has made, and 
 so our attention is diverted from the transcendent 
 office. On the hither side Death has no true inter- 
 preter and none return from its true domain to be 
 the witness of its invisible glory, none save the risen 
 Lord. But though the loved ones gone cannot return 
 to us, we shall go to them; and this faith which 
 follows that which has vanished, the Christian hope 
 of resurrection, lifts us to a point of vision from 
 
io 4 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 which it is possible for us to see death for what it 
 really is as invisibly an ascending ministrant, what- 
 ever frailty and decrepitude may attend the visible 
 descent. 
 
 The pagan idea of immortality insisted upon death- 
 lessness. The Christian faith in resurrection gives 
 death back to life as essential to its transformation. 
 Death is swallowed up of Life — included therein. 
 As "Children of the Resurrection/' we have no part 
 in what is commonly called death — that visible declen- 
 sion and dissolution from which our life is with- 
 drawn, together with our true death, leaving the 
 grave no victory. 
 
 We have only to allow ourselves the liberty which 
 science takes, to arrive at this view as a philosophical 
 conviction. We have, indeed, in juvenescence a vis- 
 ible illustration of an ascent of life upon the hidden 
 wings of death. If men were distinguished from 
 all other organisms by the possession of perpetual 
 youth, we who are accustomed to associate death only 
 with decline might pronounce him deathless, limiting 
 the province of mortality to those organisms whose 
 descent maintains his levitation. Gravitation, which 
 is the physical symbol of death, was before Newton 
 not suspected as a cosmic principle. Things were 
 seen to fall upon the earth, but the earth was not seen 
 to fall toward the sun ; there was, indeed, no appre- 
 ciable evidence of such a tendency. Yet, wholly 
 apart from such visible signs thereof, Newton's mys- 
 tical imagination leaped to the truth (afterward rea- 
 sonably confirmed) that all bodies are falling bod- 
 ies ; and in his expression of this truth he made grav- 
 itation something more than is indicated in the out- 
 ward aspects of falling and weight — he called it an 
 attraction, so that his thought became the mystical 
 apprehension of an unseen but universal cosmic bond. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 105 
 
 Thus though man had never shown any visible signs 
 of decline, some Newton would have arisen in the 
 physiological field and asserted his mortality, seeing 
 that in youth death is swallowed up of life, as grav- 
 itation is in the ascent of every organism and in the 
 sustained distance from the sun of every planet. 
 
 Every organism has an action and reaction quite 
 distinct from those of inorganic substances, and 
 which vanish from our view before there is left 
 behind merely "the dust that riseth up and is lightly 
 laid again." In the complex human life there is 
 much more that vanishes — the passing of a spiritual 
 as well as a physiological mystery, far withdrawn 
 from outward observation before the sceptical 
 physicist or pessimist seizes upon the mere residuum 
 or precipitate as the object of his fruitless investiga- 
 tion — fruitless, at least, as having any pertinence to 
 human destiny. The body which Death leaves 
 behind is surrendered to that inorganic chemistry 
 which was formerly in alliance with the more subtle 
 actions and reactions of a distinctively human life, 
 and to the physical bond of gravitation which was 
 once the condition of its consistency but which now 
 brings it to the dust. Are we any more mystical than 
 Newton and Laplace in our conviction that Death as 
 a part of the higher life is its unseen bond — the way 
 of return to its source? 
 
 In the cycle of every living organism there is a 
 descending as well as an ascending movement — age 
 as well as youth, so that the forces to which the out- 
 ward structure is finally abandoned seem to have 
 upon it a lien anticipating their full possession. This 
 is simply saying that the life and death proper to the 
 organism are gradually withdrawing before they 
 together wholly vanish, leaving the field to lower life 
 and death. But there is no claim of the lower upon 
 
■io6 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 the higher, save through the surrender made by the 
 higher as a part of its proper destiny. The signal 
 of retreat is not given from without but from the 
 inmost chamber of the citadel, where reside the will 
 and intelligence which determined the distinctive 
 architecture of the marvellous superstructure, and 
 which hold also the secret of its ruin. That secret is 
 itself genetic; invisibly it looks toward palingenesis 
 — toward the higher transformation of the vanishing 
 life, and visibly toward the outward succession of a 
 new generation. 
 
 So Death is Janus-faced; toward an unseen resur- 
 rection, a reascendent ministration, and toward the 
 visible resurgence of new life upon the earth, to 
 which it ministers by descent and which, in the case of 
 the highest organisms, it sustains by prodigal expen- 
 diture, during a period of helpless infancy and 
 dependent adolescence. 
 
 Nor is Death to be denied aught of the grace and 
 beauty of this descent and costly sacrifice, aught of 
 the sweetness of expiration — the incense of its con- 
 suming flame, since these truly belong to the weak- 
 ness and decrepitude, to the rust and ashes, to the 
 mere outward accidents that disguise the might and 
 kindliness of Death. 
 
 ANOTHER WORLD 
 
 What do we or can we know about the thither side 
 of Death? 
 
 There is no sequel to the story of Lazarus, who 
 was raised from the dead, disclosing the secrets of 
 that estate which had been a reality to him for four 
 days, as we count time upon the earth. 
 
 The Lord himself, the revealer, in a singular 
 sense, of spiritual truth, and especially the illumi- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 107 
 
 nator of Death, gave, so far as we know, no intima- 
 tion to his disciples of the life beyond the grave. Nor 
 is it recorded that they asked for any. Death was 
 unmasqued in the Resurrection and was shown as one 
 with creation, but the full light of this wonderful illu- 
 mination was thrown upon life here, showing not one 
 definite lineament, not even a shadowy trace of the 
 life beyond. There never has been any but an 
 imaginative disclosure of that life to men living upon 
 the earth. . . . "Another world," considered 
 as a definite existence, is the only field for absolute 
 agnosticism, wholly cut off from human knowledge 
 through sense, intellect, or spiritual apprehension ; it 
 is not veiled but absolutely hidden, and of it there is 
 no possible revelation, save through entrance upon 
 its actualities, when it ceases to be "another." We 
 know the divine, the eternal ; indeed, these alone are 
 really known since life itself is essentially these ; but 
 what we call another world is not simply invisible, 
 not simply a future or a next world in the sense that 
 we think of to-morrow or next year; it is another by 
 an inconceivable diversity — a distinct harmonic syn- 
 thesis, for us unrelated, and untranslatable in any 
 terms known to us. The world to come we know, 
 since it is that which this world becomes. Another 
 world is a new becoming, having its own "world to 
 come;" it is the only incommunicable. No divine 
 revelation has ever attempted to broach the inviolable 
 secret. Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, 
 neither hath it entered into the heart of man to con- 
 ceive. 
 
 There is one utterance by the Lord, recorded in 
 the Gospel, concerning the state of the Children of 
 the Resurrection: "They shall not marry, nor be 
 given in marriage; neither shall they die any more." 
 It is remarkable that, in this declaration, sex and 
 
108 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 death are joined together, as science shows them to 
 be in the specialization of organic life. The Lord 
 referred to sex and death as we know them, in their 
 specialization. While the essential principle of 
 espousal and that of death are eternal, proper to 
 any life here or hereafter, it is possible to conceive of 
 a state of existence wherein the manifestation of these 
 involves none of the external features associated with 
 our knowledge of them in their earthly manifestation. 
 As there are lower organisms which we know to be 
 sexless and deathless, in the sense we have of sex and 
 death in an advanced specialization, so there may be 
 higher organisms, belonging to that "other world," 
 to which these special terms are inapplicable. We 
 say there may be : Christ says there are ; and although 
 this assertion is the only one made by him directly 
 bearing upon the conditions of a future life, it is very 
 far-reaching in its suggestions. 
 
 Even in this earthly human life all desire is spir- 
 itually lifted into its heaven, not as being destroyed, 
 but as dying to one environment and being raised into 
 another, where its manifestation takes higher forms 
 and its ministrations seem like those of the angels. 
 It is as if out of the earthly matrix of Passion had 
 been born its heavenly embodiment, not associated 
 with corruption and so seeming something deathless, 
 though it lives through the quickness of what Death 
 essentially is in an eternal life. It is possible that 
 the Lord's saying had its real meaning as applicable 
 to the heavenly exaltation of any life, present or 
 future. Certainly the characteristic of Christian life 
 is its realization here of an eternal life, through a con- 
 stant death and resurrection; and this exaltation 
 belongs to our antipathies as well as to our sympa- 
 thies — to hate and anger as well as to love ; these also 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 fALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 109 
 
 having their heaven and angelic scope, in a field of 
 reconcilement. 
 
 We can see, then, why Christian thought is fixed 
 upon a World to Come rather than upon what is 
 called Another World. This present life has part 
 in the eternal as truly as any life ever can have. We 
 pass from glory to glory, and that crisis which we 
 call death is only a transition from one harmony to 
 another. In certain forms of the Polish national 
 dances, the guests move from room to room in the 
 palace, the music and the movement ever changing 
 in the processional march, according to the progres- 
 sive phases of the theme enacted. From beginning 
 to end it is the same theme, and the guests are the 
 same. So it may be in the progression of our human 
 life from one mansion to another of the Father's 
 House; there is a mystic change, not of personalities 
 but of special individual guises, involving complete 
 divestiture, the theme enacted remaining the same. 
 
 It is because of the complete divestiture that entire 
 newness is possible. Our attention is so fixed upon 
 structure and upon changes as themselves structural 
 that we seem at a loss when the entire structure dis- 
 appears from our view. But how does a structure 
 begin? Is not birth as much a mystery as death? 
 Form is of the essence; and, in a sense not to be 
 expressed in language, the personality has eternal 
 form. 
 
 The formed memory and the formed character 
 may be destroyed ; but the life withdrawn from these, 
 their essential ground, has its spiritual embodiment 
 after its distinct type, still remembering and recog- 
 nizant. The "deeds done in the body" are not, but 
 the doer is, and according to those deeds : in essential 
 form accordant, whatever the new environment. The 
 child seems an entirely new creature, but, whatever 
 
no WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 science may determine as to his inheritance of char- 
 acteristics acquired in preceding generations, he is 
 surely and wholly an heir in that he can himself 
 acquire anything — an heir, not simply because of and 
 in relation to an outward heritage, but because of 
 what he is. There is in this continuity an inscrut- 
 able mystery; that which determines the accord in 
 the series is invisible. It is the mystery of Genesis 
 itself. The continuity phenomenally is through dis- 
 continuity; death is essential in birth as in growth. 
 Now, let the break — that interval in the harmony 
 which we call death — be, to all appearance, absolute ; 
 tjien the resurgence, beyond our vision, is in the 
 very field of creation; passing out of the known 
 series, out of the succession of what we know as in 
 Time, it is the property of life as eternal, the herit- 
 age of the eternal kinship, under a new limitation. 
 
 What is the continuity from the limitation known 
 to us to that new and wholly unimaginable limita- 
 tion ? The mystery is transferred from the visible to 
 an invisible death, which is one with the invisible 
 birth. But the new birth — what is its matrix? 
 
 Suppose we were permitted to resume a position at 
 a point in time before the appearance of organic life 
 upon the earth. Would any then existing form of 
 inorganic life help us to an imagination of physiolog- 
 ical embodiment: Science confesses its inability to 
 answer the question, What was the matrix of cell- 
 life? 
 
 An equally insoluble mystery is presented, if we 
 inquire what is the matrix of any form, or how the 
 continuity of either a generic or an individual type 
 of organic life is maintained in all permutations of 
 environment. It is a mystery belonging to creation, 
 incommunicable, itself the ground of communication. 
 No considerations derived from what we know of the 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN in 
 
 construction of matter or of material structures, and 
 none derived from mental categories, explain the 
 transformations of the visible world; how much less 
 can they be expected to even suggest the forms and 
 limitations of an order of existence not yet creatively 
 communicated ! 
 
 Because we, in our present existence, have no con- 
 scious knowledge of pre-existent states, it does not 
 follow that the future life will be wholly denied such 
 knowledge. Our conscious intelligence here is a dis- 
 tinctive characteristic of the ultimate order in the 
 known series; and in man this intelligence involves 
 peculiar powers of reflection, co-ordination, and inter- 
 pretation, so that the psychical as well as the physical 
 man surmounts the entire series resumed in him. In 
 a new order it may be a characteristic of the creative 
 communication that conscious intelligence shall be a 
 clearer resumption, involving at least the conscious 
 recognition of friends and kindred. Our cognition 
 here of anything is unconsciously re-cognition, a see- 
 ing as through a glass darkly, a mere adumbration of 
 a recognition hereafter which shall be a seeing face 
 to face. Illusions there may be — the face itself is a 
 veil — but there may be a more transparent media- 
 tion in the communication, undisturbed by the obscu- 
 rations and refractions such as limit our present 
 mental vision. We speak of what may be ; every pre- 
 sumption of a revelation which is itself a transcendent 
 creative communication gives assurance instead of 
 mere hypothesis. 
 
 To our reason this subject is beset with difficulties, 
 because we become entangled in dilemmas suggested 
 by present relations, such as imprisoned the minds of 
 the Sadducees in the problem they presented to Christ, 
 Because the new assumption or embodiment is not 
 of flesh and blood, as we know them, it is not neces- 
 
ii2 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 sary to suppose that it is immaterial. To it a new 
 sensibility and a new thought would involve space 
 and time as forms to which our corresponding terms 
 for these would be merely analogues. Given us a 
 new sensibility, there would be given us a new uni- 
 verse. We say the dead have passed away from us, 
 but it is perfectly reasonable to conceive of them as 
 nearer to us than ever, in a closer intimacy than any 
 known to us. 
 
 During the century now closing man has made an 
 important advance through dealing with subtle cos- 
 mic forces which had hitherto been known only as 
 dealing with him, and, even thus, scarcely appreci- 
 ated. Electrical phenomena had been observed in 
 sparks occasioned by friction and in the lightning, 
 and the magnetic current had been utilized in the com- 
 pass ; but the terms electricity and magnetism had but 
 a glint of the meaning now attached to them. We do 
 not yet know what these invisible currents are, but we 
 have made ourselves at home with them, and com- 
 prehend what formerly was not suspected — their inti- 
 macies with all cosmic operation and with our ani- 
 mate economies. For the obvious terrestrial forces, 
 manifest in weight and pressure and elasticity, we are 
 now rapidly substituting these finer tensions, thus 
 driving the horses of the suns without risking the fate 
 of Icarus. It is as if our solar heritage had been 
 restored to us. Through this widened familiarity in 
 a field which until so recent a period was wholly hid- 
 den from us, we have reached a new and etherealized 
 conception of matter, and have come to feel the pulse 
 of a living universe. Science is redeeming matter, 
 making its veils transparent. 
 
 In this new view it is not difficult for us to con- 
 ceive of spiritual intimacies more subtle and perva- 
 sive than any which science has disclosed in the mate- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 113 
 
 rial world, though these cannot be apparent to us in 
 a definitely conscious appreciation. If on the same 
 wire, through electrical vibrations in musical accord, 
 several distinct messages may be simultaneously con- 
 veyed, why may not all that we call matter be at the 
 same time the medium for the expression of distinct 
 orders of intelligence? 
 
 All reasoning proceeds through analogy, but we 
 must be on our guard against the fallacy involved in 
 the process. The truth in physics or chemistry can 
 become a biological truth only by such transformation 
 as is involved in the inorganic world becoming the 
 organic. Any conception of our present conditions 
 carried forward into our imagination of those per- 
 tinent to a future life must undergo an inconceivable 
 and, to us here, impossible transformation. 
 
 What we know as good and evil, life and death, is 
 but the analogue to these as we shall know them in 
 another harmony. It is sufficient for us that in the 
 Christ-life Death and Evil are unmasqued for us and 
 reconciled with the Eternal Life. Our faith is in the 
 Resurrection through the power of this eternal life; 
 in what form we know not, but we know in what sim- 
 ilitude — in the likeness of the Son of God. 
 
 Metuchen, N. J. 
 
 Rufus M. Jones, A. M., Litt. D., Editorial in The 
 American Friend. 
 
 THE CROWN OF LIFE 
 
 The mystery of death is immemorial. It has puz- 
 zled and baffled men since there were men. Not a 
 syllable ever comes back to tell us of the new scenes 
 and the changed activities upon which a departed 
 loved one has entered. Not a breathed whisper is 
 
ii 4 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 granted which might make us know the joy of being 
 a heavenly inhabitant. 
 
 The age-long secret is kept from us, and in vain 
 our eyes try to follow beyond these shores of time 
 and place and sense. The imagination cannot pic- 
 ture a scene except with the material which it has 
 received through the eye and ear and touch; there- 
 fore we are unable to construct the scenery and cir- 
 cumstance of a newly-parted soul, for we have no 
 sense relations with that realm. We walk here, truly, 
 "not by sight." 
 
 But yet we are not left in hopeless confusion. A 
 great spiritual prophet tells us that those who over- 
 come receive "the crown of life." This takes us 
 into the very heart of mystery, and if we are only 
 spiritual enough to see, it solves our problem. 
 
 We know a little what it means to "overcome. " 
 There are all kinds of struggles going on in this 
 world for all kinds of victories and prizes, but the 
 supreme struggle is that of a redeemed inward self, a 
 pure heart, a life victorious over sin, and a nature 
 in which selfishness is completely replaced by love. 
 We do not need now to tell how this supreme battle 
 is won, for that would be to tell the whole gospel 
 story. But it is enough to know that men — any man 
 — in the very midst of temptation and sin may over- 
 come. What shall come to him as a result — what 
 does he "get" when he has overcome? What could 
 he receive in a spiritual world but a crowned and 
 complete life? Anything else would be commercial, 
 not spiritual. What does the scholar get for his years 
 of patient study and persistent toil? Not merely 
 degrees after his name; not simply prizes and tem- 
 poral rewards; not primarily a professorship some- 
 where. He has the reward of knowing; he finds his 
 chief reward in his enlarged capacity for truth. For 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 115 
 
 him who overcomes hard intellectual problems there 
 is a crown of education, which means increased capac- 
 ity. The reward for doing anything faithfully and 
 well is the ability to do it better and to do harder 
 things. The reward for bravery is greater courage 
 to face the difficult things that ought to be done. The 
 reward of any virtue is more virtue of a higher order. 
 
 Now we come back to our mystery of the life 
 beyond, and we ask our immemorial question. How 
 fares it with our beloved dead? Whatever else heaven 
 may be, it is the crown of life. The spirit that has 
 fought selfishness, as Paul fought beasts at Ephesus, 
 for the love of Christ; the soul that has learned to 
 give itself to others out of pure love, as Christ gave 
 Himself; the heart that loves God's will, no matter 
 through how hard a path it may sometimes lead, can 
 have but one goal in God's spiritual universe. There 
 can be but one result if God is God. 
 
 It must be a divine law that such a life enters into 
 larger life. Every spiritual victory through the 
 earthly life increases the capacity of the soul for more 
 life; every expression of love adds to the power of 
 loving; every pulse of sympathy makes the heart 
 larger and so life's crown comes. We cannot follow 
 the course of a dear soul who drops the visible to 
 enter the invisible; we cannot picture or imagine the 
 new activities or forecast the daily life of the heavenly 
 saint; but we do know that that life completes this 
 and crowns it, as the wise thought and trained intel- 
 lect of the white-haired scholar crowns the honest 
 effort of the young student who solves the problem 
 before him ; as the noble spirit, the four-square char- 
 acter and the perfect deed crown the first right choices 
 which shaped the boy's life. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
n6 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Gen. Lew Wallace, Lawyer and Author, in "Ben 
 Hur."* 
 
 "I cannot tell you when the idea of a Soul in every 
 man had its origin. Most likely the first parents 
 brought it with them out of the garden in which they 
 had their first dwelling. We all do know, however, 
 that it has never perished entirely out of mind. By 
 some people it was lost, but not by all ; in some ages 
 it dulled and faded; in others it was overwhelmed 
 with doubt; but, in great goodness, God kept send- 
 ing us at intervals mighty intellects to argue it back to 
 faith and hope. 
 
 "Why should there be a Soul in every man ? Look, 
 O son of Hur, for one moment look at the necessity 
 of such a device. To lie down and die, and be no 
 more — no more forever — time never was when man 
 wished for such an end; nor has the man ever been 
 who did not in his heart promise himself something 
 better. The monuments of the nations are all pro- 
 tests against nothingness after death; so are statues 
 and inscriptions; so is history. The greatest of our 
 Egyptian kings had his effigy cut out of a hill of solid 
 rock. Day after day he went with a host in chariots 
 to see the work; at last it was finished, never effigy 
 so grand, so enduring; it looked like him — the fea- 
 tures were his, faithful even in expression. Now may 
 we not think of him saying in that moment of pride, 
 'Let Death come; there is an after-life for me!' He 
 had his wish. The statue is there yet. 
 
 u But what is the after-life he thus secured? Only 
 a recollection by men — a glory unsubstantial as moon- 
 shine on the brow of the great bust; a story in stone 
 — nothing more. Meantime what has become of the 
 king? There is an embalmed body up in the royal 
 
 *Dicd Feb, 15, 1905. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 117 
 
 tombs which once was his — an effigy not so fair to 
 look at as the other out in the Desert. But where, 
 
 son of Hur, where is the king himself? Is he fallen 
 into nothingness? Two thousand years have gone 
 since he was a man alive — as you and I are. Was his 
 last breath the end of him? 
 
 u To say yes would be to accuse God; let us rather 
 accept his better plan of attaining life after death 
 for us — actual life, I mean — the organization of my 
 soul, and every arrangement for the life after death. 
 
 1 know He loves me. 
 
 "I might ask you now whether this human life, so 
 troubled and brief, is preferable to the perfect and 
 everlasting life designed for the Soul? But take 
 the question, and think of it for yourself, formulat- 
 ing thus: Supposing both to be equally happy, is 
 one hour more desirable than one year? from that, 
 then advance to the final inquiry, what are three- 
 score and ten years on earth to all eternity with God ? 
 By-and-by, son of Hur, thinking in such manner, you 
 will be filled with the meaning of the fact I present 
 you next, to me the most amazing of all events, and 
 in its effects the most sorrowful; it is that the very 
 idea of life as a Soul is a light almost gone out of the 
 world. Here and there, to be sure, a philosopher 
 may be found who will talk to you of a soul, likening 
 it to a principle ; but philosophers take nothing upon 
 faith, they will not go the length of admitting a soul 
 to be a being, and on that account its purpose is com- 
 pressed darkness to them. 
 
 u Everything animate has a mind measurable by its 
 wants. Is there to you no meaning in the singularity 
 that power in full degree to speculate upon the 
 future was given to man alone ? By the sign as I see 
 it, God meant to make us know ourselves created for 
 another and a better life, such being in fact the 
 
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 greatest need of our nature. But, alas, into what 
 a habit the nations have fallen ! They live for the 
 day, as if the present were the all in all, and go about 
 saying, 'There is no to-morrow after death; or if 
 there be, since we know nothing about it be it a care 
 unto itself.' So when Death calls them, 'Come,' they 
 may not enter into enjoyment of the glorious after- 
 life because of their unfitness. That is to say, the 
 ultimate happiness of man was everlasting life in the 
 society of God. Alas, O son of Hur, that I should 
 say it ! but as well yon sleeping camel constant in such 
 society as the holiest priests this day serving the high- 
 est altars in the most renowned temples. So much are 
 men given to this as something more than a place in 
 mortal memory; life with going and coming, with 
 sensation, with knowledge, with power and all appre- 
 ciation; life eternal in term though it may be with 
 changes of condition. 
 
 u Ask you what God's plan is? The gift of a 
 Soul to each of us at birth, with this simple law — 
 there shall be no immortality except through the 
 Soul. In that law see the necessity of which I spoke. 
 "Let us turn from the necessity now. A word as 
 to the pleasure there is in the thought of a Soul in 
 each of us. In the first place, it robs death of its ter- 
 rors by making dying a change for the better, and 
 burial but the planting of a seed from which there 
 will spring a new life. In the next place, behold me 
 as I am — weak, weary, old, shrunken in body, and 
 graceless; look at my wrinkled face, think of my 
 failing senses, listen to my shrilled voice. Ah ! what 
 happiness to me in the promise that when the tomb 
 opens, as soon it will, to receive the worn-out husk 
 I call myself, the now viewless doors of the universe, 
 which is but the palace of God, will swing wide ajar 
 to receive me, a liberated immortal soul! 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 119 
 
 "I would I could tell the ecstasy there must be in 
 that life to come ! Do not say I know nothing about 
 it. This much I know, and it is enough for me — the 
 being a Soul implies conditions of divine superiority. 
 In such a being there is no dust, nor any gross thing; 
 it must be finer than air, more impalpable than light, 
 purer than essence — it is life in absolute purity. 
 
 "What now, O son of Hur, knowing so much, shall 
 I dispute with myself or you about the unnecessaries 
 — about the form of my Soul? Or where it is to 
 abide ? Or whether it eats and drinks ? Or is winged, 
 or wears this or that? No. It is more becoming to 
 trust in God. The beautiful in this world is all form, 
 his hand declaring the perfection of taste; he is the 
 author of all form ; he clothes the lily, he colors the 
 rose, he distils the dewdrop, he makes the music of 
 nature ; in a word, he organized us for this life, and 
 imposed its conditions; and they are such guaranty 
 to me that, trustful as a little child, I leave to him 
 the lower earthly life! So nearly have they forgot- 
 ten that other which is to come! 
 
 u See now, I pray you, that which is to be saved 
 to us. 
 
 "For my part, speaking with the holiness of truth, 
 I would not give one hour of life as a Soul for a 
 thousand years of life as a man." 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 J. H. Kellogg, M. D., Superintendent Battle Creek 
 Sanitarium, President International Medical 
 Missionary and Benevolent Association and In- 
 ternational Health Association, in "The Liv- 
 ing Temple" 
 
 THE SOUL OF MAN 
 
 All nations which have attained any degree of 
 
120 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 enlightenment have had some belief in relation to the 
 human soul. This belief has always been connected 
 with the doctrine of a future life. A chief function 
 of the soul is the identification of the individual in the 
 future state of existence. The soul is thus intimately 
 associated with the personality, the individuality, the 
 identifying principle. 
 
 The greatest of all teachers clearly recognized the 
 soul as that upon which the future life of the individ- 
 ual depends. u And I say unto you my friends, Be 
 not afraid of them that kill the body, and after 
 that have no more that they can do." u Fear not 
 them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the 
 soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy 
 both soul and body in hell." Luke XII 14; Matt. 
 X:28. 
 
 Most popular beliefs respecting the soul are based 
 upon conjecture, or a confusion of Biblical teachings, 
 or both. It is the studied effort of the author in this 
 work to find a solid scientific basis for harmony 
 between the teachings of nature and the teach- 
 ings of inspiration. . . . The fact that the 
 essential purpose of the soul is to identify the 
 individual in the future world, to connect the 
 experience of this life with that of the future, really 
 leaves us scarcely more to do than to* find what is this 
 identifying element. There have been those who 
 sought to maintain that the material substance of 
 the body is the means of identification in the world 
 to come. So able a commentator as Adam Clarke 
 held this view. Nevertheless, the well-known facts 
 of science forbid us to> entertain this notion. The 
 constant changing of the matter of the body destroys 
 its value as an identifying element. The fact that the 
 same matter may have successively occupied, even 
 at the moment of death, many different human bod- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 121 
 
 ies, also raises an insurmountable objection to the 
 material substance of the body as the identifying prin- 
 ciple, or the soul of man, the essence of human indi- 
 viduality. 
 
 Man is not during life identified by the sameness 
 of matter or substance, for his material make-up is 
 subject to perpetual change, as we have seen. It is 
 incredible to- suppose that a thing which during life 
 is immaterial for the maintenance of personality or 
 individuality, should after death become absolutely 
 essential. The identifying principle cannot change. 
 Continuity or continuousness of existence is its essen- 
 tial element. It cannot identify the body unless it 
 has been with it all the time. The identifying prin- 
 ciple in man, as we have seen, is form, organization. 
 The sum total of individual characteristics consti- 
 tutes the identifying element. The plan of the tem- 
 ple is its soul ; not the external form, nor merely the 
 internal arrangement, but the entire temple scheme, 
 including the minutest details of bodily form and 
 structure. Every brain cell, every nerve fiber, every 
 string of the living harp, every tone which it pro- 
 duces, a complete description of the human instru- 
 ment and every particle of its work in human acts 
 and words and thoughts, — all these are recorded: 
 where? — In the universal mind, in the memory of 
 Him who said, "Before I formed thee I knew thee." 
 Jer. 1:5. Said David, "In thy book all my members 
 were written, which in continuance were fashioned, 
 when as yet there was none of them." Ps. CXXXIX: 
 16. The same power that formed David in accord- 
 ance with a plan which existed before he did, car- 
 rying forward this same plan represented in David's 
 character, his personality, remembered in the mind 
 of God even from before his birth, can reform him 
 in the future world, and so secure to him a future life. 
 
122 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 David recognized the existence of such a record 
 before his birth, and the Bible in many places recog- 
 nizes the existence of such a record of all human lives. 
 God's presence in the temple gives him the 
 minutest information possible respecting every detail 
 of its history; not an outward act nor an innermost 
 thought can escape His notice. Although a man may 
 die, although his very thoughts may perish, his per- 
 sonality, his character, survives. Without a human 
 brain there can be, of course, no human thinking, no 
 human willing, no human joy or sorrow. With the 
 death of the body the man ceases to be; the spirit 
 of life, the vital power which animates the dust of 
 which his body is composed, and makes him a living 
 soul, returns to God who gave it. The human will 
 surrenders its authority and control. God no longer 
 serves. Man goes to his u long home," the dust; the 
 divine spirit which dwelt in the temple, the creative 
 power which formed him, which cared for him dur- 
 ing life, which shared all his sorrows, his griefs, his 
 struggles, bore his burdens, which u knoweth his 
 frame" in its minutest detail, survives the wreck of 
 the body. And thus while man's body smolders in 
 the dust, his individuality, his "life," his soul (not 
 his human consciousness), is safely lodged in the 
 great heart of God, awaiting that critical moment to 
 which the ages have looked forward when a purified 
 universe will permit of the rehabilitation of the souls 
 of those who have loved righteousness and truth, and 
 are hence suited to an endless life "in tune with the 
 Infinite." Such will enter upon a state of endless 
 spiritual human existence through the building for 
 each of a body suited to its character, and capable 
 of reaching the high ideals and responding to the 
 highest purposes to which the soul in its previous state 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 123 
 
 of existence may have aspired, but which, through 
 weakness of the flesh, it could but imperfectly attain. 
 
 The soul is that subtle and mysterious element 
 which determines what shall be the individual form 
 and characteristics of every human being, even from 
 the earliest moment of its existence. No matter how 
 diverse circumstances and conditions may be from 
 those natural to the individual, if life is maintained, 
 the characteristic features are developed and pre- 
 served. The negro infant develops into a negro man, 
 whether born in the tropical jungles of Africa or 
 among the snowfields of the arctic regions. We see 
 the same principle in operation in lower living forms 
 as well as in man in the wonderful phenomena of 
 heredity. Wheat develops wheat, not rye, rice, or 
 barley, and each variety of wheat produces its own 
 kind. In every seed there is a perfect representation 
 of the whole plant which may spring from the seed. 
 In the tiny acorn, though invisible to human eyes, 
 there is a perfect representation of the giant oak 
 which a hundred years later may tower majestically 
 above the spot on which the acorn falls. The oak is 
 not in the acorn, but is represented there, not as a 
 conscious entity, but something greater. To explain 
 its essence would be to explain life itself; to under- 
 stand its mode of procedure would be to comprehend 
 the infinite. 
 
 We perhaps cannot find a better expression for 
 the thought than that of the eminent Dr. Hoffding, 
 Professor of Philosophy and Psychology in the Uni- 
 versity of Copenhagen, who in his lectures represents 
 to his students the matter of the body as the instru- 
 ment, with life (God) the player, while the soul is 
 its music. It is not necessary that we should com- 
 prehend clearly the properties of the soul or its func- 
 tions. It is only necessary for us to know that there 
 
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 is a soul, and that the soul is capable of preserving 
 our individuality and identity amid all the vicissitudes 
 of life, and that even in death, it still remains as a 
 guarantee and a means of an individual life beyond 
 the grave. 
 
 That there will be such a future life is proved — 
 we do not hesitate to use the word proved — by evi- 
 dence which we possess within ourselves, in addition 
 to the abundant assurance of Holy Writ. Every 
 human instinct, mental, moral, and physical, look- 
 ing toward human welfare, is heaven-implanted, is a 
 divine voice speaking to man. For example, the full 
 significance of hunger is not simply that food is 
 needed, but that there is food to satisfy the need. If 
 there were not food, there would be no hunger. A 
 kind Creator would not give to man, as a race of be- 
 ings, an appetite which could never be satisfied. 
 
 The love of life is the most imperious of all human 
 instincts. We labor, toil, endure hardships and suf- 
 ferings, in order that we may live. The animal has 
 no instinct leading it forward to a future state of exis- 
 tence. It lives in the present only, and provides only 
 to meet its present needs, or those of the immediate 
 future. Man, of all living creatures, grasps a con- 
 ception of life beyond the grave; especially when he 
 sees his present life drawing toward its close, how 
 eagerly he grasps the hope of a life beyond. This 
 instinct is the divine voice which answers for the race 
 the old question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" 
 and assures him of a life beyond the grave. This 
 conception, this belief, is necessary for the develop- 
 ment of that which is best and noblest in man in this 
 life, and is essential as a stimulus to him to make the 
 needed preparation for the next. 
 
 Battle Creek, Mich. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 125 
 
 Ira Remsen, M. D., Ph.D., LL.D., President of 
 Johns Hopkins University and Professor of 
 Chemistry , Editor American Chemical Journal, 
 in <( Science and Immortality " a Symposium 
 Edited by Samuel J. Barrows. 
 I find it extremely difficult to answer the questions 
 propounded by you, the chief difficulty arising from 
 the fact that "personal consciousness" is an expression 
 which cannot be defined. We do not know what it is. 
 It is undoubtedly in some wonderful way connected 
 with the workings of the brain. Whether it is some- 
 thing which is capable of existence independently of 
 the existence of the brain is, it appears to me, the first 
 point to be decided. I do not know of "any facts in 
 the possession of modern science" which enable us to 
 answer this question. If it could be shown that "per- 
 sonal consciousness" is necessarily connected with 
 the workings of the brain, a strong argument would 
 thus be furnished against its immortality. It seems 
 to me possible that researches in the realm of psycho- 
 physics, including observations in those whose brains 
 do not work normally, may eventually throw some 
 light upon the subject of "personal consciousness." 
 You will see, therefore, that I do not "consider the 
 question out of the pale of science altogether." 
 
 As regards the question whether there is "anything 
 in such discoveries to support or strengthen a belief 
 in immortality," I can only say that the whole ten- 
 dency of modern science is to show that immortality, 
 not necessarily of "personal consciousness," but im- 
 mortality in a broad sense, appears to be a necessary 
 consequence of the workings of the laws of nature. 
 
 Investigations in every subject are leading us to a 
 clearer recognition of the truth; and I have strong 
 faith that the more clearly we recognize it, the better 
 we shall be. Our views on many subjects are under- 
 
126 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 going change, — in most cases, I am convinced, for the 
 better. Should our views regarding the immortality 
 of u personal consciousness" undergo a radical change, 
 higher views of man's relation to the universe would 
 take their place, and still stronger reasons for living 
 honest, righteous lives would be recognized. I make 
 these last statements to indicate my ideas in regard 
 to the tendency of modern science in its bearing upon 
 the subject you have brought under discussion. 
 Baltimore, Md. 
 
 James Mark Baldwin, A. M., Ph.D., Sc.D. (Ox- 
 ford) • LL.D. ( Glasgow) , Professor of Psychol- 
 ogy, Johns Hopkins University; Editor Psycho- 
 logical Review; in the New York Indepen- 
 dent* 
 
 THEISM AND IMMORTALITY 
 
 In the first place, the way of approaching the ques- 
 tion of a future life is still, as formerly, but more 
 emphatically, the way of the theistic problem. The 
 existence of God in a future life — that is the very 
 meaning of a future life. If the philosopher finds 
 himself unable to realize a fair degree of assurance 
 that the world has in it a great Intelligence, whose 
 thought the world is, whose existence is of old, who 
 is ever living while the universe is, and just because 
 the universe cannot be without it — then such a one 
 finds that there is no meaning in the question of a 
 future life; for in criticizing God out of the universe, 
 he has laid himself low, and all other intellectual and 
 moral beings, too. The lesser must go with the 
 
 ^Included in "Fragments in Philosophy and Science," 
 Chas. Scribner's Sons, Publishers. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 127 
 
 greater ; God gone, who are we ? This is, as I have 
 intimated, an old way of getting at the question of 
 immortality, the way through the theistic problem; 
 but philosophy has seemed to confirm it in two ways : 
 by naturalizing God, if I may so speak, and then by 
 supernaturalizing nature, especially human nature, 
 man. These points may be explained a little; and I 
 may best do it by drawing on psychology. 
 
 The old theistic "proofs" were argumentative, log- 
 ical. They proceeded on certain psychological 
 assumptions, it is true, such as the u idea of God," 
 "the idea of the perfect," the "notion of design," etc. 
 But these psychological assumptions were uncriti- 
 cized. The stress fell on the arguments. As argu- 
 ments they must conform to rigid logical rules and 
 formulas — formulas which took the ideas and notions 
 out of the living whole of our thought for the most 
 part, and made them abstractions to be reasoned 
 about. Now I do not mean to say that such argu- 
 mentation has no value; it was the method of 
 philosophy when Descartes announced his "first and 
 second ontological" arguments, and when Anselm 
 developed his famous argument from the "perfec- 
 tion" of the notion of God. But it is now evident 
 from the course of thought on the question, that the 
 validity of such proofs rests on the straightness and 
 correctness of the argument; on the "distribution" 
 of this term and the "quantification," or the "uni- 
 versality," or the "conceivableness," of that. Kant 
 saw that the risk in this was too large. God is too 
 great a concession to make to logical formulas. It 
 will never satisfy mankind to make God a "notion" 
 in the first place — a logical universal — and then try 
 by formulas to get a corresponding "reality" into 
 human life. Such proofs — even granted that they 
 "proved" — so long as they stood alone, really "denat- 
 
128 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 uralized" God out of his own universe. They led 
 right on to Deism. And it was Kant's endeavor, 
 after showing this, to "naturalize" God again 
 through what he called the "moral argument." And 
 with what I am thus calling in a figure the "natural- 
 ization" of God, in man and nature, Kant found 
 belief in immortality also. 
 
 Now I am going to put this "moral argument" in 
 my own way and on strictly psychological grounds. 
 What we really want to know in this matter of theism 
 is whether God is a reality. And instead of starting 
 to find out what the idea of God includes, psychology 
 rather begins at the other end; it seeks to find out 
 what we mean by reality. What is real? How is 
 anything real? 
 
 The answer is — assuming much analysis and criti- 
 cism — that the real is that which we actually find, 
 what we cannot help finding, what we have to reckon 
 with, what our nature presupposes and inevitably 
 demands. Things and events are divided off, in our 
 mental lives and with the growth of our experience, 
 into certain great groups representing kinds, or 
 spheres, of reality. The development of these spheres 
 is a matter of practical necessity with us; we have 
 to distinguish the external world from the world of 
 memory, the world of science from the world of art. 
 In these things we have no choice, provided — we be 
 not crazy ! Now what we mean by "reality" is just a 
 group of experiences normally organized in a certain 
 way; and we believe in realities when we recognize 
 this tendency of our experiences to fall into certain 
 characteristic forms of organization. We do the 
 organizing, and so assert the reality as being there to 
 be organized. These realities we need, and we use 
 them practically as termini, fulcra, points of resist- 
 ance, for our active conduct and living. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 129 
 
 A reality, then, is a form of organized experience 
 which our mental nature has to have in order to be 
 the mental nature it is, and to grow as such. We 
 naturally demand these realities, because we are get- 
 ting them in answer to this demand. And that we 
 need them and get them, that is their proof. That 
 the external world is real means simply that it is an 
 inevitable way that the mind has of organizing what 
 it finds in that certain sphere of its experience which 
 we call sense-perception. Truth is the sort of reality 
 which we reach by an equally inexorable demand of 
 our nature that we recognize what is logical. And 
 our ethical and religious life in organizing its expe- 
 rience reaches the reality which we call God. I had 
 occasion to say what follows sometime ago in a book 
 written for scientific purposes only: 
 
 "There is moral and esthetic reality no less than 
 logical reality, and there is the same reason for believ- 
 ing in the one that there is in the other, for both rest 
 upon the fact that our mental nature demands cer- 
 tain kinds of satisfaction, and we find it possible to 
 get them. Sensational reality will not satisfy our log- 
 ical demands, for nature is often refractory and illog- 
 ical. Neither will logic satisfy our moral and esthetic 
 demands for the logically true is often immoral and 
 hideous. It is well, therefore, to write large the truth 
 that logical consistency is not the whole of reality, 
 and the revolt of the heart against fact is often as 
 legitimate a measure of the true in this shifting uni- 
 verse, as is the cold denial given by rational convic- 
 tion to the vagaries of casual feeling." 
 
 This is what I mean by the word "naturalization;" 
 this finding of the sort of reality we need in the expe- 
 rience which stimulates the need. God is the reality 
 which our moral and spiritual nature needs and finds, 
 and to make his reality depend entirely on the ability 
 
i 3 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 of the logical process to cope with his reality — that 
 seems to me to "denaturalize" him out of the very 
 sphere in which alone his reality has any significance. 
 What we need in God is a personal presence, not a 
 logical postulate. To the Deist, God is not a pres- 
 ence, he is afar off; he is not a citizen of the world, 
 our mental world; he is the director of a machine, 
 who is somewhat afraid of his machine and only 
 touches it when he has to. And there are a good 
 many theological Deists in these days. 
 
 Of course the strength of this position is the 
 psychological view that the final needs of our nature 
 — those that arise in the organization of experience 
 in this form or that — are all "equal before law." 
 Each is its own justification. So much comes from 
 psychology. But logic also has now practically 
 accepted as much. The doctrine of "judgment" in 
 the later Logics (Brentano, Erdmann, Sigwart) rests 
 upon the same truth. Judgment is mental assent, 
 acceptance, assurance, ratification of reality. With- 
 out this, logic is a shell of tautologies. So, even in 
 logic, proof is no longer a thing merely of "moods 
 and figures;" it is a matter of belief. No logic as 
 such can prove reality, but it is equally true that no 
 logic can eradicate belief in it, nor in any item of it, 
 from external reality up to God. 
 
 This general point of view is now current in the 
 most diverse philosophies, since they are becoming 
 more agreed on their common psychological founda- 
 tions. Call it the "immanence" of God with the 
 idealists— --all right; that does away entirely with the 
 "denaturalization" process. Call it "law" with the 
 naturalists — all right, Mr. Balfour's recent grotesque 
 scare-crow picture of the "naturalist" to the contrary 
 notwithstanding, for who would be "naturalized" in 
 a kingdom without law, or where the law laid waste 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 131 
 
 the very mental nature on the basis of which he 
 reached his belief in the kingdom? Mental law is 
 natural law. It is just the postulate of immortality 
 that there is continuity of mental life and law from 
 this to the other side of the river. Call it "environ- 
 ment" with the evolutionist — all right; for it is just 
 the point of the u moral argument," that God is 
 through and through the environment in such a way 
 that by our mental organization of our experiences of 
 the environment we reach the thought of God. 
 
 Once naturalize God in human thought in this 
 way, and it becomes possible to naturalize man in the 
 kingdom of the Eternal. 
 
 That is what I meant by saying above that the 
 newer way of looking at theism "supernaturalizes" 
 man. Here we come to the future life by way of 
 theism. It lifts man right up to eternal possibili- 
 ties — gives him value for immortality — by making 
 his very mental life, his organization of experience, 
 his needs and struggles, themselves the very evidence 
 and vehicle of the proof of God. Disprove God, as 
 I have said, and man goes too; but prove God 
 through man, reach belief in the greater through the 
 less — then the less is taken up into the greater. 
 
 Picture to yourself the planetary system whirling 
 on through space with no life on the worlds — no man, 
 no conduct, no thought, no ideals, nothing but globes 
 whirling on forever. Now in your own mind you 
 cannot help passing judgment on this thought. You 
 say to yourself: "Miserable business, unworthy of 
 being made; if God be outside of it he must be 
 ashamed of it; he cannot be inside of it; for it does 
 nothing but whirl to all eternity." So you conclude 
 that there could be no God anywhere in such a case. 
 The possible experience — the perception of mere 
 
132 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 globes, simply whirling — could not be organized to 
 mean a spiritual reality. 
 
 But now put man back again in the system — with 
 his life, his ideals, his beliefs, his struggles — and the 
 whirling becomes at once the most insignificant thing 
 that is there ,and all because you have reinstated the 
 form of natural existence which we call moral and its 
 experiences which find spiritual organization. God, 
 you say, must be in that; and if that should utterly 
 die out — that which gives spiritual meaning to the 
 whole — this would destroy his presence also. 
 
 But all this is not an argument; it is rather an 
 appeal to one's sense of the realities in the world, and 
 to one's judgment of the values which attach to 
 them. 
 
 Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Mrs. Elia W . Peattie, Journalist and Author, in "The 
 Beleaguered Forest" 
 
 CONFIDENCE IN GOD 
 
 A new happiness came to sustain me. It was a 
 confidence in the providence of God. ... At 
 first, when I was alone up there in the woods, I set 
 myself to the savage task of reasoning God out from 
 the fact of visible creation. The process was childish, 
 as I knew very well. But there was no one there to 
 criticize me ; I was not under obligations to tabulate 
 my ideas, or ramify them, or set this class of deduc- 
 tions on one side as belonging to the philosophy of 
 one man, and another as coinciding with yet another 
 man's notions. ... I wanted God ! I wanted 
 Love which could abide! . . . My postulate 
 was for Love. I stood by that and cared nothing 
 for reason. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 133 
 
 I did not worry about the laws I could not under- 
 stand. That it was possible to discover the laws of 
 the stars but not of the cyclone was no distress to me, 
 and I was not prone to make my Mephistopheles out 
 of such poor material as the apparent irresponsibil- 
 ity of some of Nature's forces. I think that at first 
 I must have felt only Nature-worship. Perhaps I 
 had a little season, in my great loneliness and disap- 
 pointment, of trying to think with the Emperor Mar- 
 cus Aurelius. But to be virtuous was not enough ; to 
 be just would not suffice; to be of courage and honor 
 did not warm me. I was no man. I was a woman) 
 and I required Love. 
 
 So, one sunset, walking alone, it came to me. It 
 was not the trees that sent the message, though they 
 were witnesses to it. It was not the glory of the 
 heavens, for that was evanescent, while my love 
 abided with me. It was not the solitude, though that 
 had made me conscious of my need for it. It was not 
 my sorrow, though that had made me aware of the 
 solitariness of the human life; it was not my hus- 
 band's decline, though that impressed upon me the 
 fragility of the mortal mind and its encasement. I 
 cannot explain the thing. I could hardly believe it 
 when it came. It was just as impalpable, yet as con- 
 vincing as the love which springs up in the heart of a 
 woman for a man or for a child. I, who had never 
 felt such a love, yet knew how it must be. And I felt 
 that the sense of love which came to me there, and 
 which was compacted of trust and reverence and a 
 knowledge past knowledge, was more to me than the 
 love for any man or child could ever be. 
 
 What did I know of "curvature, measure and pro- 
 portion?" What consistent theory of the universe 
 could I evolve? What were optimism or pessimism 
 to me ? Who was I to search for polytheism lurking 
 
i 3 4 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 under the cloak of Christianity? I let it go with 
 feminine incertitude. I did not have to reason. I 
 was not compelled to be a philosopher. But no one 
 could keep me from rejoicing because a white light 
 had shone round me, and because ever afterward I 
 saw things with eyes which held creation sacred; 
 which made me pitiful when I might have been 
 angered; and taught me to say, u Holy, holy, holy!" 
 there in the solitude before an Invisible Presence. 
 
 It was not necessary for me to be wise. 
 
 "Trees," I said, "you know about it as well as I. 
 You know you are a mystery. You know that all the 
 science in the world can not make your like. If it pro- 
 duces your constituents synthetically, it can not pro- 
 duce you. It can not make your leaves which mur- 
 mur in the wind ; it can not give the perfume to your 
 greenness. You keep your secret inviolate — or rather 
 it is kept from you. You have the joy of being, 
 which is enough for any tree — or woman. And if we 
 never find out any more than we know now, your 
 leaves will not be less green nor my hair less golden 
 for that. Sing, trees! I also sing." 
 
 Nobody was there to scoff. I sat beneath my King 
 of the forest and piped my little flute. We praised 
 God after our own fashion. The stars which seemed 
 meshed in the tops of the trees also praised Him. The 
 wind of the evening was loud in celebration of His 
 mystery. The spring of cold water at my door said 
 that He was eternal. The cry of the birds assured 
 me that He was delicate, ingenuous, a lover of beauty. 
 Goodness was not the only message. I did not have 
 to take the trouble to think Him invariably beneficent. 
 There was no theologian there to reprove me if I 
 chose to think that His power included destruction 
 and cruelty and the relentless wars of Nature. I did 
 not think out the equity of the strife of one thing 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 135 
 
 against another which I saw there in the forest. I 
 did not worry as to the justice or the injustice of my 
 pathetic lot. It was enough for me that the white 
 light was about me, and that peace was in my heart. 
 So I, with my flute, worshiped the unseen. We 
 made a loud noise unto the Lord — the wind, the 
 pines, the birds, the spring of cold water, and I, a 
 woman. 
 
 Chicago, Ills. 
 
 Alfred H. Lloyd, A. M., Ph.D., Junior Professor of 
 Philosophy, University of Michigan, in the 
 Philosophical Review. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND IMMORTALITY 
 
 Evolution, if consistent, must view life not as a 
 local and temporal endowment, but as an affair of a 
 universe spatially and temporally indivisible. So 
 viewed, life includes and unifies all parts of man's 
 nature, and frees immortality from dependence on 
 wholly separate unworldly souls. Individuality, too, 
 is transfigured, depending not on separate existences 
 but on relationship. So evolution implies relation- 
 ism and monism, while creationism, opposed to evo- 
 lution, implies pluralism and dualism. For creation- 
 ism immortality is absolutely another and after life; 
 for evolution "now is the accepted time," this life is 
 the immortal life. Christianity is open to monistic, 
 evolutional interpretation. 
 
 But more clearly to understand evolution and 
 immortality, to find the real meaning of the yonder 
 and the hereafter and the other, one needs to examine 
 space and time and matter. For modern thought, 
 then, the spatial and temporal, instead of being 
 opposed to the real, is intimate with the real. Space 
 
136 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 is not composite or divisible, for its parts are in 
 and of each other, and similarly of time and the parts 
 of time; not statically, of course, but dynamically 
 the parts of space — or of time — are coextensive. The 
 calculus, to which we owe the dynamic view, by its 
 use of the infinitesimal testifies to this active coexten- 
 sion of parts. Accordingly, the local is not the iso- 
 lated but the related, and is, therefore, in a genuine 
 sense omnipresent, and in like manner the momen- 
 tary is also eternal, and upon the omnipresence of the 
 local and the eternity of the temporal rests the already 
 asserted intimacy of the spatial and temporal with 
 the real. Furthermore, space and time are intimate 
 with each other, for the coexistences of space make 
 the temporal eternal, while the sequences of time 
 make the local omnipresent. Witness the current doc- 
 trines of recapitulation and environment, of memory 
 and foresight, and of motion and force. For phys- 
 ical science to-day force is the necessity of motion, and 
 motion is in and of space, not of something in space. 
 But these two inseparable intimacies make reality 
 organic and so at once material and spiritual. In the 
 conception of organism, due not less to physics than to 
 psychology, not less to mathematics than to* biology, 
 matter — the divisible — and spirit — the indivisible — 
 are made one; as inseparably one as the divine and 
 the human in its most directly human example, the 
 brotherhood of man. In reality, moreover, as 
 organic, we see that which changes but never dies, 
 which changes but at the same time conserves every 
 part of itself. The composite and divisible may 
 decompose, and decomposition is death, but the 
 organic is spatially and temporally indivisible. The 
 organic, then, is a constant triumph over death, even 
 over the death of individuals, and also over their 
 birth. Individuality, real individuality, even as 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 137 
 
 Christianity seems to declare, is not begotten nor 
 does it die. The conditions of space and time only 
 "transmute" it. 
 
 To practical life the meaning of the foregoing 
 is that all those manifold relations, which give life 
 its worth and make us that live real, are, like the 
 whole to which they one and all belong, organically 
 indivisible. We often speak of the unity of nature 
 or the unity of life, but we may speak also of the 
 unity of motherhood or the unity of friendship ; and 
 in such unities lie our own immortality and that of 
 our fellows. Is it a conscious immortality ? It cannot 
 but be conscious for consciousness, affair as it must 
 be of an indivisible universe, is coextensive with life. 
 To argue that the absence of memory in infants or 
 the lack of communication with the dead is evidence 
 at least of consciousness being subject to birth and 
 death, is simply to show a misunderstanding of 
 memory and of communication in general. Mem- 
 ory is never literally of the past. The other world, 
 the spiritual world, really does communicate with 
 the life that is, but in and through it, not from with- 
 out it. 
 
 Finally, the evolutional view of immortality has 
 important consequences for the interpretation of his- 
 tory, as well as for the more personal interests and 
 relations of mankind. For evolution the immortality 
 of one's kin and one's friends, as well as one's self, 
 is in the very life and consciousness that continues 
 among men; and, as regards the interpretation of 
 history, this can mean simply that the life of the 
 past and the life of the present must really be treated 
 as one, not two. The persons of the past are not 
 fixtures independent of the current of history, rather, 
 they have lived and moved with it, and are still alive 
 and conscious in the activity of to-day, as if our own 
 
138 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 past selves. We live with them and they in us. 
 Moreover, apparently in this sense Christianity is now 
 thinking of the living Christ, and in general, evolu- 
 tion does interpret the different doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, the conception, the resurrection, the divinity, 
 the sacrifice, the immediacy of the kingdom of heaven, 
 and the brotherhood of man. 
 
 Nothing that is worth having or worth getting, 
 nothing that is real and abiding, nothing that is 
 worthy of immortality, is not already real in us, real 
 in our life, real in our experience. For evolution the 
 maintenance of what is, nothing more, nothing less, 
 is our immortality. 
 
 Ann Arbor, Mich. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Trine, A. M., Author, in "The Life 
 
 Books." 
 (From "Character Building Thought Power" ). 
 
 He is building for eternity because when the tran- 
 sition we call death takes place, life, character, self- 
 mastery, divine self-realization, — the only things that 
 the soul when stripped of everything else takes with 
 it, — he has in abundance. In life, or when the time 
 of the transition to another form of life comes, he is 
 never afraid, never fearful, because he knows and 
 realizes that behind him, within him, beyond him, 
 is the Infinite wisdom and love; and in this he is 
 eternally centred, and from it he can never be sepa- 
 rated. 
 
 (From "In Tune With the Infinite"). 
 
 The fact of life in whatever form means the con- 
 tinuance of life, even though the form be changed. 
 Life is the one eternal principle of the universe and so 
 always continues, even though the form of the agency 
 through which it manifests be changed. "In my 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 139 
 
 Father's house are many mansions. " And surely, 
 because the individual has dropped, has gone out of 
 the physical body, there is no evidence at all that the 
 life does not go right on the same as before, not com- 
 mencing, — for there is no- cessation, — but commenc- 
 ing in the other form, exactly where it has left off 
 here; for all life is a continuous evolution, step by 
 step; there one neither skips nor jumps. 
 
 There are in the other form, then, mentalities and 
 hence lives of all grades and influences, the same as 
 there are in the physical form. If, then, the great 
 law that like attracts like is ever operating, we are 
 continually attracting to us from this side of life 
 influences and conditions most akin to those of our 
 own thoughts and lives. A grewsome thought that 
 we should be so influenced, says one. By no means, 
 all life is one; we are all bound together in the one 
 common and universal life, and especially not when 
 we take into consideration the fact that we have it 
 entirely in our own hands to determine the order of 
 thought we entertain, and consequently the order of 
 influences we attract, and are not mere willowy crea- 
 tures of circumstance, unless indeed we choose to be. 
 
 In our mental lives we can either keep hold of the 
 rudder and so determine exactly what course we 
 take, what points we touch, or we can fail to do this, 
 and failing, we drift, and are blown hither and thither 
 by every passing breeze. And so, on the contrary, 
 welcome should be the thought, for thus we may 
 draw to- us the influence and the aid of the greatest, 
 the noblest, and the best who have lived on the earth, 
 whatever the time, wherever the place. 
 
 We cannot rationally believe other than that those 
 who have labored in love and with uplifting power 
 here are still laboring in the same way, and in all 
 probability with more earnest zeal, and with still 
 
i 4 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 greater power. While riding with a friend a few 
 days ago, we were speaking of the great interest peo- 
 ple are everywhere taking in the more vital things of 
 life, the eagerness with which they are reaching out 
 for a knowledge of the interior forces, their ever- 
 increasing desire to know themselves and to know 
 their true relations with the Infinite. And in speak- 
 ing of the great spiritual awakening that is so rapidly 
 coming all over the world, the beginnings of which 
 we are so clearly seeing during the closing years of 
 this, and whose ever-increasing proportions we are to 
 witness during the early years of the coming century, 
 I said, "How beautiful if Emerson, the illumined 
 one so far in advance of his time, who labored so 
 faithfully and so fearlessly to bring about these very 
 conditions, how beautiful if he were with us to-day 
 to- witness it all! how he would rejoice I" 
 
 "How do we know," was the reply, "that he is not 
 witnessing it all? and more, that he is not having a 
 hand in it all, — a hand even greater, perhaps, than 
 when we saw him here?" 
 
 The things that cause sorrow, and pain, and 
 bereavement will not be able to take the hold of 
 us they now take, for true wisdom will enable us to 
 see the proper place and know the right relations of 
 all things. The loss of friends by the transition we 
 call death will not cause sorrow to the soul that has 
 come into this higher realization, for he knows that 
 there is no such thing as death, for each one is not 
 only a partaker, but an eternal partaker, of this Infi- 
 nite Life. He knows that the mere falling away of 
 the physical body by no means affects the real soul 
 life. With a tranquil spirit born of a higher faith 
 he can realize for himself, and to those less strong 
 he can say — 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 141 
 
 "Loving friends! be wise and dry 
 Straightway every weeping eye; 
 What you left upon the bier 
 Is not worth a single tear; 
 'Tis a simple sea-shell, one 
 Out of which the pearl has gone. 
 The shell was nothing, leave it there; 
 The pearl — the soul — was all, is here." 
 
 And so far as the element of separation is concerned, 
 he realizes that to spirit there are no bounds, and 
 that spiritual communion, whether between two per- 
 sons in the body, or two persons, one in the body 
 and one out of the body, is within the reach of all. 
 In the degree that the higher spiritual life is realized 
 can there be this higher spiritual communion. 
 
 The things that we open ourselves to always come 
 to us. People in the olden times expected to see 
 angels and they saw them ; but there is no more rea- 
 son why they should have seen them than that we 
 should see them now; no more reason why they 
 should come and dwell with them than that they 
 should come and dwell with us, for the great laws 
 governing all things are the same to-day as they 
 were then. If angels come not to minister unto us it 
 is because we do not invite them, it is because we 
 keep the door closed through which they otherwise 
 might enter. 
 
 The sum and substance of the thought presented 
 in these pages is that the great central fact in human 
 life is the coming into a conscious, vital realization 
 of our oneness with the Infinite Life, and the open- 
 ing of ourselves fully to this divine inflow. I and 
 the Father are one, said the Master. In this we see 
 how he recognized his oneness with the Father's life. 
 Again he said, the words that I speak unto you I 
 
1 42 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 speak not of myself : but the Father that dwelleth in 
 me, He doeth the works. In this we see how clearly 
 he recognized the fact that he of himself could do 
 nothing, only as he worked in conjunction with the 
 Father. Again, My Father works and I work. In 
 other words, my Father sends the power. I open 
 myself to it, and work in conjunction with it. Again 
 he said, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His 
 righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto 
 you. And he left us not in the dark as to exactly 
 what he meant by this, for again he said, Say not Lo 
 here nor lo- there, know ye not that the kingdom 
 of heaven is within you ? According to his teacher, 
 the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are 
 one and the same. If, then, his teaching is that the 
 kingdom of heaven is within us, do we not clearly 
 see that, putting it in other words, his injunction is 
 nothing more nor less than, Come ye into a conscious 
 realization of your oneness with the Father's life. As 
 you realize this oneness you find the kingdom, and 
 when you find this, all things else shall follow. 
 Croton Landing, N. Y. 
 
 Miss Lilian Whiting, Author, in "After Her Death/' 
 FROM INMOST DREAMLAND 
 
 . That science must prove immortality is 
 the message of to-day. For there is a distinct and 
 recognizable approach of the two worlds to each 
 other, — the seen and the unseen. Each is flashing 
 its signals, and the failure or the delay in a more 
 universal recognition of these on our part is simply 
 in not realizing that this communion must be attained 
 through our own higher spiritual life, and not 
 demanded or expected as mere phenomena. We 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 143 
 
 have demanded that the unseen shall manifest them- 
 selves to us, — visibly, audibly, to our material senses. 
 But while there is undoubtedly much of this phe- 
 nomena, it is, at best, only begging the question. The 
 only true, permanent and satisfactory way to live in 
 companionship and in communion with those who 
 have passed through the experience of death is to live 
 in the spirit, — to live, now and here, every day and 
 every hour, the spiritual life. And what is this life? 
 It is love, joy, peace. It is infinite and unfailing good 
 will; it is abounding love; it is meekness, and 
 patience, and belief; it is energy in all endeavor; it 
 is in the constant desire and effort to so live that, in 
 the words of Phillips Brooks, "if every man lived as 
 you do, this earth would be heaven. " The problem 
 of communion with those who have passed into the 
 unseen lies with us rather than with them; it lies in 
 our own purification and exaltation of life; for this 
 alone offers the atmosphere — the aura — into which 
 the higher spirits can enter. 
 
 The law of evolution is not limited to action on the 
 physical world alone. It does not cease to operate 
 with the attainment of physical perfection. For man 
 is primarily a spiritual being, and only incidentally 
 and transiently an inhabitant of the physical world. 
 That is a mere phase, rudimental and experimental 
 in its nature. His physical body is an instrument, by 
 means of which, for a time, he is enabled to relate 
 himself to the physical world. Here he does not so 
 much live as begin to learn how to live. 
 
 The tragedy of life would be in its lost opportuni- 
 ties, were it not that a lost opportunity, when fully 
 recognized too late for its pursuance here, is there 
 held to await him who shall be worthy of it on the 
 plane of life just beyond. The friendships that seem 
 to have missed their possible affection here, to have 
 
i 4 4 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 failed in what each at heart desired to realize, await 
 another experience to which each shall come with 
 finer preparation. Whether one shall again take up 
 his intercourse with the friend who has passed before 
 him into the unseen, depends on the daily life he leads 
 now and here. The meeting beyond is in no sense a 
 matter of arbitrary and mysterious destiny. It 
 depends solely upon the sustaining and the growth 
 of mutual understanding between the two lives, — the 
 one in the seen, the other in the unseen. The future 
 meeting is a matter of condition, of sympathy. 
 
 Man being primarily a spiritual being, his 
 own real progress or real success in life is as he so 
 realizes himself. The life after death is fast coming 
 to be no longer to us a speculation or a superstition, 
 but a very real fact with which to deal, — a phase of 
 the near future for which to daily prepare. And the 
 only true preparation for the life after death is to 
 live nobly before death. 
 
 There seems to me no doubt that her* prophetic 
 words to the effect that science will yet prove immor- 
 tality are almost on the eve of fulfillment. Psychic 
 science is conquering new territory; discerning more 
 and more of truth constantly. It is discovering that 
 the life just beyond this is not so great a change from 
 this as we have fancied ; that there is no such thing 
 as a "disembodied" spirit. Death is simply the sep- 
 aration of the finer ethereal body from the outer and 
 coarse one. The new form is like the old, save that 
 it is subtle, magnetic, and it is far more the direct 
 reflection of the spiritual nature. The unseen world 
 in which it now begins another life is as real, — far 
 more real, indeed, — than this, and is formed of far 
 more potent forces. This world exists all about us 
 
 *Kate Field. 
 
SMALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 145 
 
 in space. To become cognizant of it depends on con- 
 dition alone. To the blind the world we live in is 
 unseen, because the blind man has not the organ 
 that corresponds with his environment; when the 
 spiritual world about us is undiscovered, it is because 
 we have not yet developed those latent faculties which 
 would enable us to perceive it. The spiritual life is 
 
 "built of furtherance and pursuing; 
 Not of spent deeds, but of doing." 
 
 As we live the life of the spirit we are companioned 
 by the friends in thte unseen, in the simple and natural 
 way that attends all true relations of mutual sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 All this is but preliminary to the one salient and 
 supreme truth that may easily be deduced from it, — 
 the unmistakable assurance of the persistence of 
 identity in the life of the spirit, in the body and out of 
 the body. All our social life in this world is spiritual 
 life; all our loves and friendships are of the spirit, 
 — certainly not of the body. The nature of the spir- 
 itual being which temporarily inhabits a physical 
 body in the physical world, is in no wise altered by 
 the event of death, which liberates it from this phys- 
 ical case. When liberated, it enters on life in the 
 ethereal world, which is the corresponding counter- 
 
 Eart of life in this world. If we could clearly compre- 
 end what life would be now with the entire elimina- 
 tion of all physical demands, we should approach 
 the comprehension of what the life on the next highfer 
 plane must be. Take away all that ministers to the 
 physical needs; imagine beginning the day without 
 care for the body, or for a thousand purely transient 
 and material interests that beset us here, and that 
 one is thus left free for the higher thought, for 
 
i 4 6 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 purely mental and spiritual occupations. Imagine 
 communication carried on, not by letters and tele- 
 grams, but by the instant flight of thought; imagine 
 travelling to be a matter of will and instant per- 
 formance rather than an affair demanding prepara- 
 tion in detail, where all the clumsy processes of mate- 
 rial life are eliminated, and where the law of thought, 
 controlling vibration, is understood and acted upon, 
 and to some degree can we thus achieve some com- 
 prehension of the nature of life in the ethereal world. 
 The one point of supreme importance, however, in 
 the establishment of the truth of intercommunica- 
 tion between the Seen and the Unseen is that it enters 
 into our present daily life, uplifting and enlighten- 
 ing it. The spiritual being, temporarily inhabiting 
 his physical body, realizes himself as an immortal 
 being whose responsibility it is to fill the days with 
 significant experiences. The choice rests with one's 
 self entirely. It may seem a thing largely and almost 
 inevitably dependent on circumstances, but it is not; 
 for thought is greater than circumstance or event, 
 and dominates them. Significance or insignificance 
 in the quality of life is, like good or evil, a matter of 
 personal choice with the individual. It is possible to 
 eliminate the inane hours and make every day tell 
 in its purposes of fulfillment. Nor is this possibility 
 restricted to the city dweller, in the heart of all that 
 which is finest in art, literature and ethics. It is a 
 matter of individual choice rather than that of indi- 
 vidual opportunity. . . . There can be a reali- 
 zation of that finer world interpenetrating that in 
 which we live. Its ether is in the atmosphere we 
 breathe. It is the world of reality, of force, of vivid- 
 ness, of power. Now it is not only they who have 
 passed on beyond the things of sense who live in this 
 world, but it is one in which the higher self, the 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 147 
 
 ethereal organism, may live, even before it leaves 
 the body. Everything in this natural world has its 
 spiritual or ethereal counterpart. Nature perpetu- 
 ates herself in more delicate yet more potent forms. 
 The ethereal body which man assumes at death is a 
 counterpart of the body here; it has the same form, 
 only that it is etherealized. It is not less, but more 
 real. It has to do with a higher range of correspon- 
 dence. It is an inhabitant of a more important plane 
 of life. Science has demonstrated the existence of the 
 finer atmospheric ether in which this finer body lives 
 and moves. There is a world touching and mingling 
 with ours in which lie the springs of power. Most 
 people live, sometimes, and fragmentarily, in this 
 world. They recognize moments, hours, days, when 
 event and sequence become rhythmic, when the vision 
 shines clear and the voice is heard. Now if it be pos- 
 sible to so live one day in the year, it is possible to so 
 live three hundred and sixty-five days in a year. If 
 it be possible for one hour a day, it is possible for 
 twenty-four hours. This intensity and exaltation con- 
 stantly records its impress on the air, — that is, in this 
 finer ethereal world. The deed is the outward and 
 momentary expression; the motive and purpose are 
 the inner and permanent elements that build up life 
 on the invisible side. One who holds his purpose 
 true to this higher end of life is creating new condi- 
 tions that will ultimately transform all circumstances. 
 There is no limit to that which he may accomplish. 
 He holds the key to the unlimited stores of energy. 
 
148 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Mr. Benjamin F. Underwood, Editor, Author and 
 Lecturer, in "A Lay Funeral Sermon" 
 
 THE PERMANENT IS THE INVISIBLE 
 
 . Our brother has passed on into the invis- 
 ible to make room for another guest. We no longer 
 see him. 
 
 But because he has ceased to be part of the visible 
 order, it does not follow that he has ceased to exist. 
 It is a fact of science, not less than of philosophy, that 
 the permanent is the invisible, the intangible, the 
 uncognizable. Ultimate being is unrepresentable and 
 unpicturable in thought and undescribable by any 
 terms which apply to the relative world; but it is 
 that ultimate power that lies behind, so to speak, of 
 all objects of sense, that of which phenomena are but 
 the appearances to the mind of man, that which is the 
 basis of all activity, of the inorganic and organic 
 world alike. There is a universe of which the phys- 
 ical universe is only such a symbolical representation 
 as is possible to the finite and sense-imprisoned mind 
 of man, with its organically imposed limitations. It 
 is in ourselves that the universe is revealed, that the 
 world of sense, with all its wealth of hue and sound 
 and odor exists. With more senses than we possess 
 or with senses more acute and capable of more com- 
 prehensive cognitions, glories in the natural world 
 would doubtless be witnessed which have never 
 dawned upon the mind of any human being in the 
 flesh. It would seem that our senses, instead of 
 enabling us to know all things that exist, as some 
 people superficially suppose, serve to restrict us from 
 knowing all but a comparatively few things. 
 
 With increase of knowledge the mind comes to see 
 that neither sensibility nor conceivability is the test of 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 149 
 
 possibility, that there are objects beyond the range, 
 beyond all possible extension of the senses, and that 
 actualities exist which transcend all present knowl- 
 edge, and of which the mind may be able to form no 
 representative idea. It is by exercise of the Scientific 
 imagination" that discoveries are made and the 
 boundaries of the known extended. The man of 
 science tests his imagination and inferences by veri- 
 fication. But lying beyond the proven is ever the 
 great, unexplored region to which the mind has had 
 no access; and in regard to the possibilities and prob- 
 abilities of that unknown region, men always have 
 imagined, believed and hoped. 
 
 We have caught only a few glimpses of the uni- 
 verse and they are such only as sense limitations have 
 permitted us to obtain. This view is altogether upon 
 a priori grounds, in favor of a larger conception of 
 life than that which is based upon the conception that 
 life is the result of mere collocation of matter. The 
 mind must have a deeper basis than that which is 
 afforded by the fleeting phenomena of material com- 
 binations; and as sunset and night bring to view a 
 multitude of stars, the blazing suns of other systems 
 than our own, so the end of earthly life and the dark- 
 ness of death may reveal glories quite as august which 
 belong to another order and stage of being. 
 
 This life in itself gives no explanation of our be- 
 ing, unless indeed it be conceived as philosophies and 
 religions teach, and as the millions believe, that death 
 is a door to- a larger life. The conviction of future 
 life persists through centuries with a vigor which no 
 superstition can destroy, giving comfort and consola- 
 tion to all who mourn for their loved ones removed 
 by death 1 . 
 
 One night in October, 1861, under a starlit sky on 
 the Potomac, a group of soldiers belonging to the 
 
i 5 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Fifteenth Massachusetts Volunteers was discussing 
 this old problem — the immortality of the soul. An 
 opinion expressed by one and concurred in by several 
 was that with no hope of anything beyond death, a 
 man is a fool to imperil his life in battle for his coun- 
 try or for a principle. Others, full of youthful en- 
 thusiasm and patriotic ardor, claimed that the nation 
 needed the services of her sons and that every true 
 American should feel that it is sweet and glorious to 
 suffer, and if needs be, to die for his country, with no 
 hope of reward beyond the consciousness of having 
 faithfully done his duty. 
 
 A few days thereafter occurred the fierce and 
 bloody battle of Ball's Bluff, in which some of those 
 who took part in this conversation were slain. As I 
 (who was wounded in this engagement, and the morn- 
 ing after the battle was captured by the Confeder- 
 ates) saw the dead lying on the field of carnage and 
 heard the groans of the dying, an appalling spec- 
 tacle, I recalled the discussion of a few nights before, 
 and I could not help thinking that if for the poor 
 fellows who, in the flower of youth, when life was all 
 bright before them, had fallen fighting for flag and 
 country, which they were never to see again, there was 
 nothing but annihilation, then, indeed, justice and 
 right do not exist in the Power that rules the world. 
 In this thought emotion was probably stronger than 
 reason. Yet, after all these many years from the date 
 of that tragic event, I am unable to reconcile with 
 justice the death of those comrades who perished in 
 the spring time of life, if there is no unseen world 
 supplementary to this into which their death was a 
 birth and in which they did and do perform parts 
 in the great drama of being. 
 
 If the millions who, for principle, for country and 
 for race have suffered imprisonment, torture and 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 151 
 
 ignominious death, if they survive not beyond, there 
 seems to be something lacking which is needed to sat- 
 isfy the moral nature and the heart of man. We 
 admire the self-sacrifice which gives up all and expects 
 nothing when truth is to be advanced and humanity is 
 to be benefited ; but the thought that the most exalted 
 moral goodness, the unselfish love, may perish with 
 the effort it makes to- help and to save those who may 
 not even appreciate the cost of the blessings which they, 
 through the suffering and death of others, receive, 
 is, to say the least, depressing. It is more in conson- 
 ance with our feelings and with our moral sentiments 
 to believe that whatever is worth preserving persists 
 in an unseen order, or in an unapprehended dimen- 
 sion of being, in which will be solved the problems 
 of this life of lights and shadows,, of joys and sor- 
 rows. In justification of the hope may we not point 
 to the progressive development of life on this earth 
 which has been going on amidst struggle and suffer- 
 ing for so many ages ? Has humanity appeared after 
 this unimaginable duration, after these millions of 
 years of preparation, as the final product of evolution, 
 only to be extinguished forever? Is the development 
 of the human race from savagery to civilization, is 
 the ascent of man to the mountain peaks of intel- 
 lectual and moral greatness, are all the conquests over 
 wrong, all the victories of virtue achieved through 
 sacrifice and undeviating devotion to principle, all the 
 love and goodness which have brightened and bet- 
 tered the world, and all the hopes and aspirations 
 which have appealed to human hearts and sustained 
 man in the midst of his master and in the face of 
 death — are these to be followed by the complete 
 extinction of all light on this planet and by the return 
 of the planet itself to fire-mist? Will there remain 
 no enduring results of the mental and moral condition 
 
152 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 which it has taken so many ages to produce? Is not 
 the fact that all which has been and all which will 
 have been achieved on the earth must ultimately be 
 blotted out, so far as it can be by physical dissolutions 
 — is not this fact an indication that the results of 
 this long process of evolution and ascension — intel- 
 lect, character, virtue — will continue to exist unim- 
 paired by death, even when our planet has run its 
 course and has been resolved back to the worldstuff 
 from which it was developed? 
 
 Many — most people, perhaps — have no< difficulty 
 in believing in immortality, which they assume to be 
 true without much interest in arguments for or 
 against the doctrine. Many feel an abiding convic- 
 tion in its truth. During a walk and conversation 
 which I had with the poet, Fitz-Greene Halleck, 
 more than forty years ago at Guilford, Conn., he 
 said: "There is no proof of such a life, and we 
 need none," or words to this effect. His contention 
 was, as Cicero says, u that there is, I know not how, 
 in the minds of men a certain presage, as it were, of 
 a future existence. " Thomas Paine, commonly 
 regarded as the arch heretic, declared that the "belief 
 in a future state is a rational belief founded upon 
 facts visible in the creation." . . . Mankind 
 will never be without belief in immortality. Man's 
 love of life, his moral ideals, the injustice and ine- 
 quality of social conditions, the wrongs unrighted 
 and the virtues unrewarded here, together with the 
 impossibility of disproving the reality of a future life 
 are, without other reasons perhaps, sufficient to insure 
 general adherence to the belief when the special 
 dogmas and traditions associated with it in the pop- 
 ular mind shall have been outgrown. 
 
 Quincy, Ills. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 153 
 
 William James, M. D., LL.D., Ph. and Lift. D., 
 Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 
 in his Ingersoll lecture, "Human Immortality; 
 Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine/ 9 
 . The first of these difficulties is relative to 
 the absolute dependence of our spiritual life, as we 
 know it here, upon the brain. One hears not only 
 physiologists, but numbers of laymen, who' read the 
 popular science books and magazines, saying all 
 about us, How can we believe in life hereafter when 
 Science has once for all attained to proving, beyond 
 possibility to escape, that our inner life is a function 
 of that famous material, the so-called u gray matter" 
 of our cerebral convolutions? How can the function 
 possibly persist after its organ has undergone decay? 
 For the purposes of my argument, I beg 
 you to agree with me to-day in subscribing to> the 
 great psycho-physiological formula : Thought is a 
 function of the brain. The question is, then, Does 
 this doctrine logically compel us to disbelieve in 
 immortality? Ought it to force every truly consistent 
 thinker to sacrifice his hopes of an hereafter to what 
 he takes to be his duty of accepting all the conse 1 - 
 quences of a scientific truth? . . . The next 
 thing in order for me is to try to make plain to you 
 why I believe that it has in strict logic no deterrent 
 power. I must show you that the fatal consequence 
 is not coercive, as is commonly imagined; and that 
 even though our soul's life (as here below it is 
 revealed to us) may be in literal strictness the func- 
 tion of a brain that perishes, yet it is not at all impos- 
 sible, but on the contrary quite possible, that the life 
 may still continue when the brain itself is dead. 
 
 The supposed impossibility of its continuing comes 
 from too superficial a look at the admitted fact of 
 functional dependence. The moment we inquire more 
 
i54 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 closely into the notion of functional dependence, and 
 ask ourselves, for example, how many kinds of func- 
 tional dependence there may be, we immediately per- 
 ceive that there is one kind at least that does not 
 exclude a life hereafter at all. The fatal conclusion 
 of the physiologist flows from his assuming offhand 
 another kind of functional dependence and treating 
 it as the only imaginable kind. 
 
 When the physiologist who thinks that his science 
 cuts off all hope of immortality pronounces the 
 phrase:, "Thought is a function of the brain," he 
 thinks of the matter just as he thinks when he says, 
 "Steam is a function of the tea-kettle." "Light is a 
 function of the electric current." Material objects 
 have the function of inwardly creating or engender- 
 ing their effects, and their function must be called 
 productive function. Just so, he thinks, it must be 
 with the brain. . . . But in the world of phys- 
 ical nature productive function of this sort is not the 
 only kind of function with which we are familiar. 
 We have also releasing or permissive function; and 
 we have transmissive function. 
 
 My thesis now is this : that when we think of the 
 law that thought is a function of the brain, we are 
 not required to think of productive function only; 
 we are entitled also to consider permissive or trans- 
 missive function. And this the ordinary psycho- 
 physiologist leaves out of his account. 
 
 Suppose, for example, that the whole universe of 
 material things — the furniture of earth and choir of 
 heaven — should turn out to> be a mere surface-veil 
 of phenomena, hiding and keeping back the world of 
 genuine realities. Such a supposition is foreign neither 
 to common sense nor to philosophy. Common sense 
 believes in realities behind the veil even too super- 
 stitiously; and idealistic philosophy declares the 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 155 
 
 whole world of natural experience, as we get it, to be 
 but a time-mask, shattering or refracting the one 
 infinite Thought which is the sole reality into those 
 millions of finite streams of consciousness known to 
 us as our private selves. Suppose, now, that this were 
 really so, and suppose, moreover, that the dome, 
 opaque enough at all times to the full supersolar 
 blaze, could at certain times and places grow less so, 
 and let certain beams pierce through into this 
 sublunary world. These beams would be so many 
 finite rays, so to speak, of consciousness, and they 
 would vary in quantity and quality as the opacity 
 varied in degree. Only at particular times and places 
 would it seem that, as a matter of fact, the veil of 
 nature can grow thin and rupturable enough for 
 such effects to occur. But in those places gleams, 
 however finite and unsatisfying, of the absolute life 
 of the universe, are from time to time vouchsafed. 
 Glows of feeling, glimpses of insight, and streams 
 of knowledge and perception float into our finite 
 world. 
 
 Admit, now, that our brains are such thin and half- 
 transparent places in the veil. What will happen? 
 Why, as the white radiance comes through the dome, 
 with all sorts of staining and distortion imprinted 
 on it by the glass, even so the genuine matter of real- 
 ity, the life of souls as it is in its fullness, will break 
 through our several brains into this world in all sorts 
 of restricted forms, and with all the imperfections 
 and queerness that characterize our finite individu- 
 alities here below. According to the state in which 
 the brain finds itself, the barrier of its obstructive- 
 ness may also be supposed to rise or fall. It sinks 
 so low, when the brain is in full activity, that a com- 
 parative flood of spiritual energy pours over. At 
 other times, only such occasional waves of thought as 
 
156 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 heavy sleep permits get by. And when finally a brain 
 stops acting altogether, or decays, that special stream 
 of consciousness which it subserved will vanish 
 entirely from this natural world. But the sphere of 
 being that supplied the consciousness would still be 
 intact ; and in that more real world with which, even 
 whilst here, it was continuous, the consciousness 
 might, in ways unknown to us, continue still. You 
 see that our soul's life, as we here know it, would 
 none the less in literal strictness be the function of 
 the brain. The brain would be the independent vari- 
 able, the mind would vary dependently on it. But 
 such dependence on the brain for this natural life 
 would in no wise make immortal life impossible, — 
 it might be quite compatible with supernatural life 
 behind the veil hereafter. ... * 
 
 My second point is relative to the incredible and 
 intolerable number of beings which, with our modern 
 imagination, we must believe to be immortal, if im- 
 mortality be true. . . . We give up our own 
 immortality sooner than believe that all the hosts of 
 Hottentots and Australians that have been, and shall 
 ever be, should share it with us. It is the 
 
 most obvious fallacy in the world, and the only won- 
 der is that all the world should not see through it. 
 It is the result of nothing but an invincible blindness 
 
 *Prof. James, after making his abstract argument, added 
 an elucidation of the more concrete conditions of the case. 
 The reader is referred to the book, "Human Immortality," 
 for the interesting arguments and hypotheses which the neces- 
 sity for brevity obliges the compiler to omit. In the preface 
 to the second edition, the professor answers the critics who 
 objected to his transmission-theory of cerebral action as a 
 doorway to immortality. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 157 
 
 from which we suffer, an insensibility to the inner 
 significance of alien lives, and a conceit that would 
 project our own incapacity into the vast cosmos, and 
 measure the wants of the Absolute by our own puny 
 needs. 
 
 . . . Not a being of the countless throng is 
 there whose continued life is not called for, and called 
 for intensely, by the consciousness that animates the 
 being's form. That you neither understand nor call 
 for it, that you have no* use for it, is an absolutely 
 irrelevant circumstance. That you have a saturation- 
 point of interest tells us nothing of the interests that 
 absolutely are. The Universe, with every living 
 entity which her resources create, creates at the same 
 time a call for that entity, and an appetite for its con- 
 tinuance, — creates it, if nowhere else, at least within 
 the heart of the entity itself. It is absurd to suppose, 
 simply because our private power of sympathetic 
 vibration with other lives gives out so soon, that in 
 the heart of infinite being itself there can be such a 
 thing as plethora, or glut, or supersaturation. It is 
 not as if there were a bounded room where the minds 
 in possession had to move up or make place and 
 crowd together to accommodate new occupants. Each 
 new mind brings its own edition of the universe of 
 space along with it, its own room to inhabit; and 
 these spaces never crowd each other, — the space of 
 my imagination, for example, in no way interferes 
 with yours. ... I speak, you see, from the 
 point of view of all the other individual beings, 
 realizing and enjoying inwardly their own existence. 
 If we are pantheists, we can stop there. We need 
 only say that through them, as through so many 
 diversified channels of expression, the eternal spirit 
 of the Universe affirms and realizes its own infinite 
 life. But if we are theists, we can go farther with- 
 
1 58 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 out altering the result. God, we can then say, has 
 so inexhaustible a capacity for love that his call and 
 need is for a literally endless accumulation of created 
 lives. He can never faint or grow weary, as we 
 should, under the increasing supply. His scale is 
 infinite in all things. His sympathy can never know 
 satiety or glut. 
 
 Benjamin Ide Wheeler, A. M., Ph.D., LL.D., Pres- 
 ident University of California, in his Inger- 
 soll lecture, "Dionysos and Immortality." 
 
 . . . Without Dionysos and Orphism there 
 could have been no Plato. Plato's philosophy builds 
 on a faith, and that faith is Dionysism. Everywhere 
 in his thinking religion gleams through the thin gauze 
 of philosophic form, and except his system be under- 
 stood as a religion and as a part of the history of 
 Greek religion, it yields no consistent interpretation, 
 and is not intelligible either in its whence or whither. 
 The things many and various he has to tell about 
 the Ideas refuse to take orderly place and position in 
 a doctrine of logical realism such as metaphysics 
 teaches, but are satisfied all in a doctrine of spiritual- 
 ity and the higher life, such as poetry and religion can 
 preach. 
 
 The universe which Plato feels is in substance the 
 universe which the Dionysos enthusiasms presuppose. 
 There is a world of the outward and material, behind 
 it is a world of the unchanging norm, the essential 
 purpose, the supreme reality. To the former belongs 
 the body, to the latter by nature and source the soul. 
 This mortal life is an entanglement of the soul in the 
 meshes of the material. Still, through the perverting 
 and obscuring medium of that which enfolds it the 
 soul catches glimpses of the true, and gathers intima- 
 tions of its own kinship with the ideal and the abid- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 159 
 
 ing. All the Platonic arguments for the immortality 
 of the soul, in the Phaedrus, in the Republic, in the 
 Phaedo, diverse as they seem, unite as being merely 
 various ways or devices for setting forth a central 
 faith whose first inspiration had come from the 
 Dionysos cult. 
 
 The influence of Eleusis and of Dionysos covers 
 all the latter day of Hellenic life, but peculiarly 
 strong is it written upon the thought and in the lit- 
 erature of the closing years of the sixth century and 
 of the greater portions of the faith. The sixth cen- 
 tury marked a period of genuine religious revival, 
 — not a revival merely of observance and rites, but a 
 stirring of the personal interest in matters of faith 
 and personal destiny that approaches the develop- 
 ment of what we know as personal religion. We 
 miss, to be sure, from our point of view, the firm 
 outlines of a formulated theologic faith concerning 
 personal relation to the eternal, such as we are wont 
 to identify with personal religion; but men were 
 thinking in terms of individual responsibility, and 
 forms of theology distinct from the state and tribal 
 types were emerging and were preparing the way for 
 the rationalism of which Euripides stands in literature 
 as the early exponent. 
 
 Expressions concerning the life after death, how- 
 ever much they might cling to the traditional moulds 
 of the old-time, or to what we may call the Hom- 
 eric, faith regarding the geography of Hades, 
 showed, as contrasted with the Homeric view, a rad- 
 ical change in the conception of the life itself. Thus 
 Pindar: 
 
 11 Victory setteth free the essayer from the struggle's 
 griefs, yea, and the wealth that a noble nature hath 
 made glorious bringeth power for this and that, put- 
 ing into the heart of man a deep and eager mood, a 
 
160 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 star far seen, a light wherein a man shall trust, if but 
 the holder thereof knoweth the things that shall be, 
 how that of all who die the guilty souls pay penalty, 
 for all the sins sinned in this realm of Zeus One 
 judgeth under earth, pronouncing sentence by 
 unloved constraint. 
 
 "But evenly ever in sunlight night and day an 
 unlaborious life the good receive, neither with vio- 
 lent hand vex they the earth nor the waters of the 
 sea, in that new world; but with the honored of 
 the gods, whosoever had pleasure in keeping of 
 oaths, they possess a tearless life; but the other part 
 suffer pain too dire to look upon. 
 
 "Then whosoever have been of good courage to 
 the abiding steadfast thrice on either side of death, 
 and have refrained their souls from all iniquity, 
 travel the road of Zeus unto the tower of Kronos; 
 there around the islands of the blest the ocean breezes 
 blow, and golden flowers are glowing, some from the 
 land on trees of splendor, and some the water feed- 
 eth, with wreaths whereof they entwine their hands. 
 So ordereth Rhadamanthos' just decree, whom at his 
 own right hand hath ever the father Kronos, husband 
 of Rhea, throned above all worlds." 
 
 Similarly in the following fragments of dirges : 
 
 "For them shineth below the strength of the sun 
 while in our world it is night, and the space of crim- 
 son-flowered meadows before their city is full of the 
 shade of frankincense trees, and of fruits of gold. 
 And some in horses, and in bodily feats, and some 
 in dice, and some in harp-playing have delight; and 
 among them thriveth all fair-flowered bliss and frag- 
 rance streameth ever through the lovely land, as 
 they mingle incense of every kind upon the altars of 
 the gods. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 161 
 
 "By happy lot travel all unto an end that giveth 
 them rest from toils. And the body indeed is sub- 
 ject unto the great power of death, but there remain- 
 eth yet alive a shadow of the life; for this only is 
 from the gods; and while the limbs stir, it sleepeth, 
 but unto* sleepers in dreams discovereth oftentimes 
 the judgment that draweth nigh for sorrow or for 
 joy." 
 
 Most significant here, as betraying how fully Pin- 
 dar's thought shaped itself in Dionysiac or Orphic 
 moulds, are the expressions "this only is from the 
 gods," and "while the limbs stir, it sleepeth.' ' 
 The real existence of the soul as the divine 
 element of man's life is the existence freed 
 from the constraint o«f the body which dulls 
 it and prevents it from seeing and knowing 
 darkly." . . . It is in the light of this sense for a 
 clearly. This is Paul's "Now we see in a mirror 
 continuance of personal ties beyond the grave, that 
 the Attic sepulchral monuments, with their peaceful 
 scenes of family reunion and association, must find 
 their rightful interpretation. It remained now for 
 Plato, in harmony with this newly quickened concep- 
 tion of a real personal continuance after death and 
 continuance in a life bearing relations to the life on 
 earth, to offer the first philosophic argument for the 
 immortality of the soul. 
 
 The chirping psyches of Homer's netherworld were 
 mere phantom apologies to a stolid, helpless belief in 
 continuance; the offerings to the dead practised 
 among the early non-Homeric Greeks were a tribute 
 to the idea of tribal and family unity. This was all 
 that the older faith of the Greeks could offer. 
 
 With Dionysos, however, there came into Greek 
 religion and thought a new element, an utterly new 
 point of view. He taught his followers to know that 
 
1 62 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 the inner life of man, the soul, is of like substance 
 with the gods, and that it may commune with the 
 divine. Before the days of his revelation there had 
 been between the generations of mortal men, who fell 
 like the generations of leaves, and the undying gods 
 whose food is ambrosia and whose drink nectar, a 
 gulf fixed deep and impassable. After his revelation 
 the soul was divine and might claim an immortality 
 like to that of the gods. 
 
 Dionysos had waited long in the vales of Nysa and 
 Parnassos, buried like the uncut gem in crude and 
 uncouth guise, but when the need and desire of men 
 sought after him he came to help. A human hand, 
 lifting its grasp toward immortality, stands a mute 
 witness to a consciousness arising in the single human 
 soul that it has a meaning in itself, that it has a pur- 
 pose and a mission of its own, that it holds direct 
 account with the heart of the world, and of a world 
 to whose peerage it belongs and with whose plan and 
 reason it has rights and a hearing. 
 
 The faiths of men are quoted under various names 
 and are set forth in various articles, but we may not 
 be confused thereby, for men are men; control of 
 nature has grown stronger and history longer since 
 the day when Greece first frankly and straight looked 
 nature and life in the face, but man himself stays 
 much the same, — given the same conditions, the plain 
 touch of need makes all the centuries kin. 
 
 If in the throb of Dionysos's passion men seem to 
 gain an insight into the spiritual harmonies of nature, 
 and intimations of their own potential kinship with 
 the divine, which cold reason and dull sense had not 
 availed to give, it was still dim, groping vision ; but 
 yet the face was set thither, where, in a later day, — 
 a day for which Greece and Dionysos prepared, — 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 163 
 
 men learned through the Convincing Love to know 
 and live the eternity within them. 
 Berkeley, Cal. 
 
 Josiah Royce, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of the His- 
 tory of Philosophy, Harvard University, in his 
 Ingersoll lecture, "The Conception of Immor- 
 tality." 
 . . . When we ask about the Immortality of 
 Man, it is the permanence of the Individual Man 
 concerning which we mean to inquire, and not pri- 
 marily the permanence of the human type, as such, 
 nor the permanence of any other system of laws or 
 relationships. 
 
 But in philosophy we who study any of these fun- 
 damental problems are unwilling to assert anything 
 about a given subject, unless we first understand what 
 we mean by that subject. Philosophy turns alto- 
 gether upon trying to find out what our various fun- 
 damental ideas mean. Thus, when in practical life, 
 you act dutifully, you may not be wholly clear as to 
 just what you mean by your duty; but when you study 
 Moral Philosophy your primal question is, What 
 does the very Idea of Duty mean? Now precisely 
 so, in case of the Immortality of the Individual Man, 
 the question arises, What do we mean when we talk 
 of an individual man at all? But this question, to my 
 mind, is not a mere preliminary to an inquiry con- 
 cerning immortality, but it includes by far the larger 
 part of just that inquiry itself. For unless we know 
 
 *For President Wheeler's scholarly exposition of the 
 Greek faith in immortality as affected by the rise of individ- 
 ualism, see the volume published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
 These extracts are from the concluding pages of the lecture. 
 
1 64 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 what an individual man is, we have no business even 
 to raise the question whether he is immortal. But, 
 on the other hand, if we can discover what we mean 
 by an individual man, the very answer to that ques- 
 tion will take us so far into the heart of things, and 
 will imply so much as to* our views about God, the 
 World, and Man's place in the world, that the ques- 
 tion about the immortality of man will become, in a 
 great measure, a mere incident in the course of this 
 deeper discussion. Accordingly, I shall here raise, 
 and for the larger part of this lecture shall pursue, 
 an inquiry concerning what we mean by an Individual 
 Man. Only towards the end of this discussion shall 
 we come clearly to see that in defining the Individual 
 Man, we have indeed been defining his Immortality. 
 
 So far, then, as we live and strive at all, our lives 
 are various, are needed for the whole, and are unique. 
 No one of these lives can be substituted for another. 
 No one of us finite beings can take another's place. 
 And all this is true just because the Universe is one 
 significant whole. 
 
 That follows from our general doctrine concerning 
 our unique relation, as various finite expressions tak- 
 ing place within the single whole of the divine life. 
 But now, with this result in mind, let us return again 
 to the finite realms, and descend from our glimpse of 
 the divine life to the dim shadows and to the wil- 
 derness of this world, and ask afresh: But what is 
 the meaning of my life just now? What place do I 
 fill in God's world that nobody else either fills or can 
 fill? 
 
 How disheartening in one sense is still the inevit- 
 able answer. I state that answer again in all its neg- 
 ative harshness. I reply simply: For myself, I do 
 not now know in any concrete human terms wherein 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 165 
 
 my individuality consists. In my present human form 
 of consciousness I simply canot tell. If I look to 
 see what I ever did that, for all I now know, some 
 other man might not have done, I am utterly unable 
 to discover the certainly unique deed. ... I 
 only know that I have always tried to be myself and 
 nobody else. This mere aim I indeed have observed, 
 but that is all. As for you, my beloved friend, 1 
 loyally believe in your uniqueness ; but whenever I try 
 to tell you wherein it consists, I helplessly describe 
 only a type. That type may be uncommon. But it 
 is not you. For as soon as described, it might have 
 other examples. But you are alone. Yet I never 
 tell what you are. And if your face lights up my 
 world as no other can — well, this feeling too, when 
 viewed as the mere psychologist has to view it, 
 appears to be simply what all the other friends report 
 about their friends. It is an old story, this life of 
 ours. There is nothing new under our sun. Noth- 
 ing new, that is, for us, as we now feel and think. 
 When we imagine that we have seen or defined 
 uniqueness and novelty, we soon feel a little later 
 the illusion. We live thus, in one sense, so lone- 
 somely here. For we love individuals; we trust in 
 them ; we honor and pursue them ; we glorify them 
 and hope to know them. But after we have once 
 become keenly critical and worldly wise, we know, 
 if we are sufficiently thoughtful, that we men can 
 never either find them with our eyes, or define them 
 in our minds; and that hopelessness of find- 
 ing what we most love makes some of us cyn- 
 ical, and turns others of us into lovers of bar- 
 ren abstractions, and renders still others of us 
 slaves to monotonous affairs that have lost for us 
 the true individual meaning and novelty that we had 
 hoped to find in them. Ah, one of the deepest trage- 
 
1 66 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 dies of this human existence of ours lies in this very 
 loneliness of the awakened critics of life. We seek 
 true individuality and the true individuals. But we 
 find them not. For lo, we mortals see what our poor 
 eyes can see; and they, the true individuals, — they 
 belong not to this world of our merely human sense 
 and thought. 
 
 They belong not to this world, in so far as our 
 sense and our thought now show us this world ! Ah, 
 therein, — just therein lies this very proof that they 
 even now belong to< a higher and to a richer realm 
 than ours. Herein lies the very sign of their true 
 immortality. For they are indeed real, these individ- 
 uals. We know this, first, because we mean them 
 and seek them. We know this, secondly, because, in 
 this very longing of ours, God too longs; and because 
 the Absolute life itself, which dwells in our life, and 
 inspires these very longings, possesses the true world, 
 and is that world. For the Absolute, as we now 
 know, all life is individual, but is individual as 
 expressing a meaning. Precisely what is unexpressed 
 here, then, in our world of mortal glimpses of truth, 
 precisely what is sought and longed for, but never won 
 in this our human form of consciousness, just that is 
 interpreted, is developed into its true wholeness, is 
 won in its fitting form, and is expressed, in all the 
 rich variety of individual meaning that love here 
 seeks, but cannot find, and is expressed too as a por- 
 tion, unique, conscious, and individual, of an Abso- 
 lute Life that even now pulsates in every one of our 
 desires for the ideal and for the individual. We all 
 even now really dwell in this realm of a reality that 
 is not visible to human eyes. We dwell there as indi- 
 viduals. The oneness of the Absolute Will lives in 
 and through all this variety of life and love and long- 
 ;„^ +Un*- n^r ; s o, 7rs J^t cannot I've in and through 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 167 
 
 all without working out to the full precisely that indi- 
 viduality of purpose, that will to choose and to love 
 the unique, which is in all of us the deepest expression 
 of the ideal. Just because, then, God is One, all our 
 lives have various and unique places in the harmony 
 of the divine life. And just because God attains and 
 wins and finds this uniqueness, all our lives win in 
 our union with him the individuality which is essential 
 to their true meaning. And just because individuals 
 whose lives have uniqueness of meaning are here only 
 objects of pursuit, the attainment of this very indi- 
 viduality, since it is indeed real, occurs not in our 
 present form of consciousness, but in a life that now 
 we see not, yet in a life whose genuine meaning is 
 continuous with our own human life, however far 
 from our present flickering form of disappointed 
 human consciousness that life of the final individual- 
 ity may be. Of this our true individual life, our 
 present life is a glimpse, a fragment, a hint, and in 
 its best moments a visible beginning. That this 
 individual life of all of us is not something limited 
 in its temporal expression to the life that we now 
 experience, follows from the very fact that here noth- 
 ing final or individual is found expressed. 
 
 I have had time thus only to hint at what to my 
 mind is the true basis o>f a rational conception of 
 Immortality. I do not wish to have the concrete 
 definitions of the prophecies which can be based upon 
 this conception in the least overrated. Individuality 
 we mean and seek. That, in God, we win and con- 
 sciously win, and in a life that is not this present 
 mortal life. But we also seek pleasure, riches, joys. 
 Those, so far as they are mere types of facts, we as 
 individuals have no right to expect to win, either 
 here or elsewhere, in the form in which we now seek 
 them. How, when, where, in what particular higher 
 
1 68 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 ' form of finite consciousness our various individual 
 meanings get their final and unique expression, I also 
 in no wise pretend to know or to- guess. The con- 
 fidence of the student of philosophy when he speaks 
 of the Absolute, arouses a curiously false impression 
 in some minds that he supposes himself able to pierce 
 further into all the other mysteries of the world than 
 others do. But that is a mistake. I have had no 
 time here to give even to my argument for my con- 
 ception of the Absolute any sort of exact statement 
 or defense. I well know how vague my hints of 
 general idealism have been. I can only say that for 
 that aspect of my argument I have tried to give, in a 
 proper place, a fitting defense. 
 
 The case, however, for the present application of 
 my argument to the problem of Human immortality 
 lies simply in these plain considerations : v ( i ) The 
 world is a rational whole, a life, wherein the divine 
 will is uniquely expressed. (2) Every aspect of the 
 Absolute Life must therefore be unique with the 
 uniqueness of the whole, and must mean something 
 that can only get an individual expression. (3) But 
 in this present life, while we. constantly intend and 
 mean to be and to love and know individuals, there 
 are, for our present form of consciousness, no true 
 individuals to be found or expressed with the con- 
 scious materials now at our disposal. (4) Yet our 
 life, by virtue of its unity with the Divine Life, must 
 receive in the end a genuinely individual and signifi- 
 cant expression. (5) We men, therefore, to our- 
 selves, as we feel our own strivings within us, and to 
 one another as we strive to find one another, and to 
 express ourselves to one another, are hints of a real 
 and various individuality that is not now revealed 
 to us, and that cannot be revealed in any life which 
 merely assumes our present form of consciousness, 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 169 
 
 or which is limited by what we observe between our 
 birth and death. (6) And so, finally, the various 
 and general individuality which we are now loyally 
 meaning to express gets, from the Absolute point of 
 view, its final and conscious expression in a life that, 
 like all life such as Idealism recognizes, is conscious, 
 and that in its meaning, although not at all neces- 
 sarily in time or in space, is continuous with the frag- 
 mentary and flickering existence wherein we now see 
 through a glass darkly our relations to God and to 
 the final truth. 
 
 I know not in the least, I pretend not to guess, by 
 what processes this individuality of our human life is 
 further expressed, whether through many tribula- 
 tions as here, or whether by a more direct road to 
 individual fulfillment and peace. I know only that 
 our various meanings, through whatever vicissitudes 
 of fortune, consciously come to what we individually, 
 and God in whom alone we are individuals, shall 
 together regard as the attainment of our unique 
 place, and of our true relationships both to other 
 individuals and to the all inclusive Individual, God 
 himself. Further into the occult it is not the busi- 
 ness of philosophy to go. My nearest friends are 
 already, as we have seen, occult enough for me. I 
 wait until this mortal shall put on — Individuality. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass. y 
 
 Mrs. Ruth McEnery Stuart, Author, in "A Golden 
 Wedding and Other Tales!" 
 The sisters turned to each other, opened their arms, 
 
 *For Prof. Royce's consideration of Individual Man, his 
 relationship to humanity and to the Divine Life, see the 
 book "The Conception of Immortality," pages 4 to 70. 
 
170 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 and fell sobbing each upon the other's shoulder. 
 Thus they sat for some moments, and when they 
 raised their heads they were alone. 
 
 "I hope," said Miss Sophia, wiping her eyes, U I 
 hope pa and ma's been a 'lookin' on an' list'nin', 
 Sis ! 'Twould make 'em happier, even in Heaven," 
 
 "Yas — an' Sonny too, dearie. I hope he's been 
 present — though I doubt if he'd keer so much. I be- 
 lieve he'd enjoyed more bein' upstairs las' night, a- 
 studyin' the birds with them gentlemen." 
 
 "I reckon you're right, Sis, and maybe he was. I 
 don't be'lieve the good Lord'd hinder 'im if he 
 wanted to come." 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Brig.-Gen. Roeliff Brinkerhoff, Banker and Philan- 
 thropist, in the Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 
 
 Let me suggest to* the inquirer to focus 
 attention upon one of these alleged miracles, and the 
 greatest of all, which is the resurrection of Christ 
 from the dead. If that statement of fact is proved 
 to be true, there is no occasion to waste time on the 
 other miracles. Some of them may be unverified 
 traditions, and many of the Old Testament stories 
 may be myths or allegories, but what care we if 
 Christ rose from the dead ? For in that event he was 
 a divine teacher, and all his promises of the life that 
 now is and of that which is to come are trustworthy. 
 All I can do is to point the way, with the assurance 
 that starting as a skeptical lawyer, over fifty years 
 ago, I have repeatedly gone over the whole field, and 
 have kept pace fairly well, I think, with all modern 
 criticism. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 171 
 
 Hence my deliberate conclusion is that there is no 
 fact in history contemporary with ot antecedent to 
 the death of Christ which is so fully authenticated 
 as that which claims that Jesus Christ rose from the 
 dead, and that the gospel narratives of that event are 
 strictly true. I do not believe that any jury of aver- 
 age intelligence, with the facts before them, would 
 fail to bring in a unanimous verdict, "Proved beyond 
 a reasonable doubt." 
 
 This is the most momentous question that can be 
 presented to the human mind. Upon its truthfulness 
 Christianity as a divine revelation must stand or fall. 
 The Apostle Paul understood this perfectly, and he 
 is one of our most important witnesses, as he was the 
 first to put into* writing the facts within his know- 
 ledge. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (the 
 genuineness of which is not disputed by friend or 
 foe), Chapter xv, verse 14, says: "If Christ be not 
 risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also 
 is vain." Elsewhere he says there were about five 
 hundred brethren who, like himself, had seen the 
 risen Christ, and the most of them were yet alive. 
 (Second Corinthians, xv. 5.) 
 
 Wherever Paul went the burden of his message 
 was " Christ and the resurrection," and because of it 
 he received scourings and imprisonments, and many 
 other indignities, and finally death itself by martyr- 
 dom. Was Paul a liar? 
 
 Contemporary with Paul were the other apostles, 
 whose testimony we have in the four gospels, as 
 recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and 
 the Acts of the Apostles as recorded by Luke. Is the 
 testimony of these witnesses trustworthy? 
 
 To me the grandest moment in human history was 
 the meeting of Christ with Mary Magdalene in the 
 garden, and when, upon speaking her name in glad 
 
1 72 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 recognition, she exclaimed, "Rabboni," (my great 
 master) . I can never read this account or even think 
 of it except with eyes moistened by contagious joy. 
 
 For fifty years past the leading text book on evi- 
 dence is conceded by all lawyers to be "Greenleaf on 
 Evidence/' and these rules of evidence were applied 
 by him in a separate volume, entitled "The Testi- 
 mony of the Evangelists." The four gospels are 
 printed in parallel columns, and all apparent differ- 
 ences are considered as they would be in a court of 
 law, and the result is a triumphant verdict in favor of 
 their truthfulness, and no lawyer, so far as I have 
 knowledge, has ever questioned its correctness. 
 Greenleaf only considers the testimony of the four 
 evangelists, but in addition we have the events that 
 followed, as recorded in the epistles of Paul, and in 
 the Acts of the Apostles by Luke. 
 
 What these men did who claimed to be eye wit- 
 nesses of the appearance of the risen Christ is a mat- 
 ter of authentic history. Without any hesitancy they 
 went everywhere proclaiming Christ and the resurrec- 
 tion. Every one of these twelve apostles, with the 
 exception of John, went to martyrdom. Did they go 
 to death with a lie in their mouths? Accepting their 
 testimony as true, countless thousands following their 
 example went to martyrdom. Was all that sacrifice 
 and suffering based upon a lie? 
 
 Whatever we may think of the origin of Christian- 
 ity, no sane mind will deny that it is the most potent 
 and beneficent fact in history. Like every other 
 potential force, whether material or spiritual, its de- 
 velopment, with many relapses, has been through 
 storm and struggle and the survival of the fittest, in 
 accordance wiith the universal law of evolution. 
 Through many centuries slowly but surely the pre- 
 cepts of the Divine Nazarene have elevated and 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 173 
 
 humanized the nations, and to-day whatever we have 
 worthy of preservation in our boasted civilization is 
 the outgrowth of Christianity as surely as an oak is 
 the outgrowth of an acorn. 
 
 No man who has ever lived upon the earth has had 
 a happier life than I have had, and yet if that is all it 
 only enhances the horror of the possibility of non- 
 existence hereafter. A God who would perpetrate 
 such a condition would be a fiend and not a Father, 
 
 No, no! Christ is risen, and He says that whoso- 
 ever believeth in Him shall not perish, but shall have 
 everlasting life. 
 
 Mansfield, 0. 
 
 Nathaniel S. Shaler, Sc. D., Dean of Lawrence 
 Scientific School and Professor of Geology, 
 Harvard University, in "The Interpretation of 
 Nature!' 
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 
 
 FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF 
 
 NATURAL SCIENCE* 
 
 . The attitude of scientific men towards the 
 doctrine of the personal immortality of the soul ap- 
 pears to be a matter of much interest to the public. 
 Every teacher in this field of inquiry finds himself 
 subject to frequent interrogations as to the measure of 
 his belief in a future life, and he readily discovers 
 that his answers have an undue weight with those 
 who hear them. There is hardly sufficient reason for 
 this desire to ascertain the views of naturalists con- 
 
 *Originally one of the course of lectures on the Winkley 
 foundation given by Prof. Shaler before the students of An- 
 dover Theological Seminary, 1891. 
 
i 7 4 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 cerning a problem which clearly lies beyond their 
 province. The rules of their calling limit them to 
 considerations which have a place in the phenomenal 
 world alone. If they go far from the facts with 
 which they have to- deal, they transgress the limits of 
 their clearly defined field, and enter wildernesses 
 which they have no right to tread. If they essay 
 journeys there, they must make them without the 
 semblance of authority. . . . Although the 
 students of nature are by the rules of their craft 
 limited to- the phenomenal world, they have been 
 wont to express their convictions as to the possibilities 
 of existence in forms independent of the body, and 
 often given their verdict as to the immortality of the 
 soul in a very authoritative manner. In general their 
 verdict has been adverse to the doctrine of immortal- 
 ity. I propose to consider the nature of the founda- 
 tions of this judgment, and in general to take account 
 of the facts which appear to make for or against 
 the view that the essential qualities of men survive 
 the process of death. The reader should not expect 
 much profit from these considerations; yet while the 
 results will have a negative rather than a positive 
 value, they may serve in a way to clear the ground 
 of certain incumbrances, and to show in a definite 
 manner the proper attitude of those who cultivate 
 physical science towards the large questions of the 
 hereafter. 
 
 When the method of interpreting nature by 
 means of observations parted from the more ancient 
 system in which the phenomena of the world were 
 accounted for by the direct interference of a super- 
 natural power, the votaries of the new science natur- 
 ally became at once, and to a very great extent, eman- 
 cipated from the bondage of ancient beliefs. They 
 seemed to themselves to enter upon a terrestrial para- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 175 
 
 dise which appeared well walled off from the mystical 
 realm; they were in a measure excommunicated by 
 the older faith, and they rejoiced in their new-found 
 freedom. . . . Many a man of to-day person- 
 ally experiences the influence of this transition which 
 he may trace in the whole history of natural science. 
 if from the intangible realm of faith or philosophy, 
 tfhere he sees dimly or not at all, he comes to the 
 study of clear-cut natural facts, he is apt to be en- 
 chanted with the clear seeing which he at once enjoys. 
 For a time he seems to be in a realm of 
 light; he fancies that his new province is so replete 
 with certainties that he will never have again to deal 
 with shadowy things. Antecedent and consequent 
 are so distinctly enchained that there seems no place 
 for doubt ; but as the student goes on in his work he 
 finds that his ways lead from beneath the ver- 
 tical sun which illuminates simple truths to regions 
 where the rays become more and more aslant, and 
 in the end the light fails him altogether. He is then 
 in the place of our science of to-day, where the men of 
 science become conscious of the fact that they, too, 
 have to explore the darkness if they would seek the 
 answer of all their larger questions. 
 
 The sturdy, self-satisfied denials of immortality; 
 the confident statements of men who said there was 
 no soul because they could not find it with the knife or 
 weigh it in the balance, were put forth in the days 
 when naturalists had but begun their inquiries in the 
 phenomenal world. Year by year they have learned 
 a fitter distrust as to their right to pass a final judg- 
 ment in this matter. Steadfastly they have come to 
 perceive more clearly the truth that they really abide 
 in a universe, and that the part which is revealed to 
 them is to the sum of the facts only as one to infinity. 
 Gradually it has been forced upon them that they 
 
i 7 6 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 too have to assume the intangible if they would take 
 any firm steps in explaining series of facts with which 
 they have to deal. A large part of this caution is due 
 to our study of organic phenomena, especially in that 
 part of the biologic field where the investigator has to 
 consider the marvellous truths of inheritance. In 
 face of these facts of descent, the most pragmatic 
 naturalist is sure to learn some caution in his criticism 
 of philosophers and theologians. 
 
 In general it may be said that the most insistent 
 expressions of disbelief as to the endurance of the 
 individual after the body has been resolved into its 
 elements have come from the students of biology, 
 mainly from those who have been concerned in the 
 anatomical study of the human body. In these men 
 the habit of the commonplace, which so tends to de- 
 grade all our conceptions of nature, has led to the 
 belief that the unseen was non-existent. It is 
 difficult for the most fair-minded student of or- 
 ganic forms to perceive the magnitude of the 
 unknown in all that pertains to psychic pheno- 
 mena, so long as his inquiries are limited to an in- 
 dividual creature. The most important effect from 
 that new aspect of our science which we term Dar- 
 winian is found in the fact that it has forced students 
 to« look upon each separate organism as a mere phase 
 in the propagation of a great impulse, which has been 
 transmitted through an inconceivably long series 
 from the remote past. Here, indeed, we find the 
 spiritual element in our modern biologic science, 
 which has already greatly affected, though it has but 
 begun to influence, the minds of naturalists. 
 
 Not only has this sense of the profound depth of 
 the unknown sobered the minds of students who con- 
 cern themselves with the organic world, but a change 
 in the views concerning the constitution of matter has 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 177 
 
 also done much to bring them to a new attitude as to 
 the substantial foundations of the phenomena with 
 which they have to deal. A generation ago we con- 
 ceived that matter was an inert something which was 
 quickened into activity by energy, and that this energy 
 was in its nature essentially different from the physi- 
 cal basis of the universe. The confidence of those 
 who held to the opinions commonly termed material- 
 istic was largely due to this belief in the dual organi- 
 zation of nature. Observing the ever-changing char- 
 acter of the natural forces and the endless transmu- 
 tations which they undergo in action, and noting at 
 the same time what seemed to them the inert char- 
 acter of substance except when stirred into motion, 
 or built into form, they naturally were led to deny 
 the immortality of the soul, and to base their ne- 
 gations, as they supposed, on a firm material 
 foundation. Of late years, however, the opinion has 
 been gaining among physicists that matter itself is 
 but a mode of action of energy, and so in place of the 
 dualistic basis, naturalists are being driven to a con- 
 ception of unity as regards the phenomenal world. 
 
 Until the phenomena of inheritance were in a 
 measure appreciated, biologists generally considered 
 psychic action to- be a mere function of the nervous 
 system and to owe its manifestations to some peculi- 
 arity in the structure of that organic part. They 
 regarded the mind of man as a direct product of the 
 brain, and explained the coincidences which we find 
 among all the individuals of a kind as fully accounted 
 for by the likeness in the machinery of this great 
 nerve centre. It was therefore only necessary to 
 explain the uniformity in structure of the central 
 parts in order sufficiently to explain the organ of the 
 likeness of the mental phenomena in man or any other 
 
178 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 species of animal; they had but to suppose a law 
 enforcing the shape of those parts to account for 
 the uniformity of the product. 
 
 The facts already ascertained concerning the con- 
 ditions of inheritance, although they are only a small 
 part of what we have to 1 learn in the matter, show us 
 clearly that the ancient apparently simple explana- 
 tion of mental phenomena can no longer be safely 
 trusted. If a mechanical explanation can be used at 
 all, it must be vastly more complicated than that 
 which has been hitherto adduced. It is clear that all 
 the essential qualities of the mind pass from genera- 
 tion to generation over the reproductive bridge, borne 
 onward in the keeping of chemical molecules. Al- 
 though in the higher forms the ovum has the cell 
 character, in all species, even up to man, the male 
 element, which is at least as potent as the female 
 loses its cellular structure and transmits its qualities 
 through its molecular organization alone. If there 
 be any organization of these molecules other than 
 that of a purely chemical kind, the fact entirely 
 escapes our apprehension. It is moreover in a high 
 degree improbable that any such unseen shaping 
 actually occurs. We are thus forced to the conclu- 
 sion that the ongoing of life from generation to gener- 
 ation is brought about in large measure by influences 
 which may be given over for transmission to the 
 simpler aggregates of matter. We have to suppose 
 that these associations of atoms, at most a few score 
 or a few hundred in number, which are the units of 
 the protoplasmic mass, can effectively contain and 
 transmit the important elements of experience ac- 
 quired by myriads of ancestors ; that they can convey 
 this experience to other molecules, and so from gen- 
 eration to generation of the molecular scries ; that the 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 179 
 
 impulses will assert themselves at the right time and 
 place in the developing organism. 
 
 The way in which the generational transmission is 
 effected not only goes quite beyond our field of know- 
 ledge, but appears also to transcend the limits of the 
 scientific imagination. 
 
 There is only one conclusion of evident value, at 
 least at the present time, which we can gain from the 
 facts above noted, and this is in effect that matter, 
 even in its simpler states of organization in the atom 
 or molecule, may contain a practically infinite body of 
 latent powers. So far, of course, we have seen this 
 soul-bearing capacity of matter in its simpler states 
 only in the organic realms; but he would be a rash 
 man who should affirm that this was the only place 
 in nature where the material or chemical substances 
 were enabled to become the keepers of intellectual 
 seed. From an a priori point of view, and without 
 reference to the facts which we have gained concern- 
 ing the sequences of ordinary life, it appears to me 
 less difficult to suppose the capacities of an individual 
 mind, to be perpetuated after death, and this in a 
 natural manner, than to explain the phenomena of in- 
 heritance which are clearly indicated in the organic 
 series. To account for these evident truths demands 
 the supposition of such colossal potentialities in the 
 psychic capacities of matter that we can hardly see 
 a limit to the field of its possible action. 
 
 It is quite beyond the province of the naturalist 
 to suggest any ways in which intelligence, parted by 
 death from its habitation, can be preserved; he has 
 no evidence that such preservation actually occurs. 
 He should be the last man to deny that the vast body 
 of individual experience which seems to indicate the 
 existence of visible forms representing the departed, 
 is a mere mass of falsehoods ; he can only say that the 
 
180 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 conditions of all such observations are such as make 
 anything like scientific inquiry exceedingly difficult 
 if not quite impossible. It is too soon to say what 
 may come forth from the devoted inquiries of those 
 persons who, in certain cases well trained in observa- 
 tion, are giving their lives in endeavoring to verify 
 these ancient beliefs in apparitions. 
 
 There is another effect which bears on the interest 
 in immortality, one derived from the close study of 
 nature, which is hard to set forth in words. When 
 the student comes to feel, as the intellectually pros- 
 perous naturalist always does, that he is part of a 
 vast tide, or rather a portion of a gigantic organiza- 
 tion which is moving forward steadfastly in the con- 
 trod of an order, of a purpose, he becomes content to 
 abandon himself to the power which controls his 
 action, or rather we should say to go freely and 
 energetically in the path on which he is impelled, 
 without regard to the goal, but with perfect con- 
 fidence that whatever the destination it is in all senses 
 fit. If he is to live forever, that life will be good 
 for the whole; if he is to be extinguished or changed, 
 as are the mere vibrations of matter, then that, too, 
 is for the good of the whole. 
 
 There is yet another effect arising from the study 
 of nature which is not without its influence on our 
 views concerning immortality. This is due to the 
 fact that most naturalists acquire a kind of instinct 
 which leads them to suppose underlying purposes, 
 or at least continuous trends, in the course of uni- 
 versal events. Thus they perceive a steadfast 
 progress from the lower stages of inorganic to the 
 higher forms of organic existence. It seems, in a 
 way, a denial of the observed order to suppose that 
 the series is interrupted with the death which over- 
 takes each individual, and which must, with the 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 181 
 
 cooling of the suns, overwhelm all the higher life 
 which the planets bear. For one, I cannot help 
 looking upon absolute death, that kind of passing 
 a*way which would leave organic life quite without 
 issue, as in a way offensive to' my understanding, and 
 as a measure out of the observed order of pheno- 
 mena. Clearly the trend of all the ages the history 
 of which we can trace has led to the integration 
 of energy in higher intelligence. It is a most un- 
 satisfactory supposition that all this toil and pains is 
 to be without fruit. It is by no means certain that 
 the fit harvest is personal immortality ; but, so far as 
 we can see, the unknown continuation of the known 
 is best satisfied by the hypothesis that life is in some 
 way perpetuated, with all the personal profit which 
 has been attained by that greatest of all natural 
 results, the individual soul.* 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Felix Adler, Ph.D., Professor of Political arid Social 
 Ethics, Columbia University, Founder Ni w 
 York Society for Ethical Culture, in "Life and 
 Destiny" 
 
 IMMORTALITY 
 
 The dead are not dead if we have loved them 
 truly. In our own lives we can give them a kind of 
 immortality. Let us arise and take up the work they 
 have left unfinished, and preserve intact the treasures 
 they have won, and round out, if possible, the circuit 
 of their being to the fulness of an ampler orbit in 
 our own. 
 
 They that have left us are not afar; their presence 
 is near and real, a silent and august companionship. 
 In still hours of meditation, in the stress of action, 
 
 Trof. Shaler died April 10, 1906. 
 
1 82 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 in the midst of trials and temptations, we hear their 
 voices whispering words of cheer or warning, and 
 our deeds are, in a sense, their deeds, and our lives 
 their lives. 
 
 So does the light of other days still shine in the 
 bright-hued flowers that clothe our fields. So do 
 they who have long since been gathered into the silent 
 city of the dead still live in the deeds we do for their 
 sake, in the earnest effort we put forth toward greater 
 rectitude, patience, purity, under the influence of their 
 unforgetable memories. 
 
 The conservation of moral energy is in a certain 
 sense as true as the conservation of mechanical en- 
 ergy. We are not dust merely that returns to dust; 
 we are not summer flies that bask in the sunshine of 
 a passing day; we are not bounded in our influence 
 by the narrow boundary of our years. In aspiring 
 to noble ends, the soul takes on something of the 
 greatness of that which it truly admires. 
 
 The evident disparity between virtue and happi- 
 ness has led men to take refuge in the thought of 
 compensation hereafter, and the necessity of a future 
 state in which the good shall be rewarded and the 
 evil punished has been deduced from the very inequi- 
 ties and moral inconsistencies of our present experi- 
 ence. The argument in this specific form is worth- 
 less; but it is based, nevertheless, upon a capital 
 truth — the truth, namely, that our moral ideal is 
 destined to be realized, though we may not now 
 know how it will be realized. 
 
 Vast possibilities suggest themselves to us of an 
 order of existence wholly different from all that we 
 have ever known ; a gleam reaches the eye, as it were, 
 from a far celestial land, and the crimson dawn of 
 a sun of Truth appears, to which the splendors of 
 our earthly mornings are as obscurity. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 A MAN LIVE AGAIN 183 
 
 As for myself, I admit that I do not so much 
 desire immortality as that I do not see how I can 
 escape it. If I, as an individual, am actually under 
 obligation to achieve perfection, if the command 
 "Be ye therefore perfect" is addressed, not only to 
 the human race in general, but to every single mem- 
 ber of it (and it is thus that I must interpret the 
 moral imperative) , then on moral grounds I do not 
 see how my being can stop short of the attainment 
 marked out for it, of the goal set up for it. 
 
 What may be the nature of that other life it is 
 impossible to know and it is useless toi speculate. 
 Such terms as consciousness, individuality, even per- 
 sonality, are but finite screens which give no adequate 
 clew to the infinite for which they stand. Only this 
 I feel warranted in holding fast to — that the root of 
 my selfhood, the best that is in me, my true and only 
 being, cannot perish. In regard to that the notion 
 of death seems to me to be irrelevant. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 James M.Peebles, A. M., M. D., Ph.D., Editor and 
 Physician, in "Immortality and Our Employ- 
 ments Hereafter" 
 
 THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE 
 
 . . . All organic life begins in a simple cell. 
 Every organized structure is but an aggregation of 
 these cells ; and not only the specific form which the 
 aggregate assumes, but the distinctive character of 
 each component cell depends upon a soul-germ or 
 pre-existing type which embodies the genius or idea 
 of which the material structure is plus the influences 
 of the environment, the expression. 
 
 "A single elementary atom," says that prince of 
 
1 84 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 modern philosophers, Professor Balfour Stewart, u is 
 a truly immortal being, and enjoys the privilege of 
 remaining unaltered by the powerful blows that can 
 be dealt against it." No solid thinker believes in 
 the destructibility of either matter or spirit. The 
 conservation of spiritual energies is as true as the 
 demonstrated conservation of forces. 
 
 The soul being a living force, is necessarily im- 
 mortal. It is the visible and phenomenal forms and 
 qualities only that change. The celestial angels ever see 
 these elementary atoms, — these unconscious monads 
 that exist in the golden splendor of their underived 
 immortality. Infilled with pure spirit, — aflame with 
 the divine life — these monads, these "firsts" of things, 
 vibrate, rotate, repel, unite, form organic relations, 
 and, in obedience to the laws of universal order, take 
 on an ultimate expression by becoming incarnated in 
 a material form. 
 
 Consciousness is coeval and coordinate with life. 
 What we commonly consider our soul is not, logi- 
 cally speaking, ours; but we are its. The soul — a 
 potentialized and individualized portion of the Over- 
 Soul, God — is the man. Life is the aromal garment 
 of the spirit, and its most immediate vehicle of ex- 
 pression. The spiritual is the real, the permanent, 
 and each mortal is in the spirit world now, though 
 veiled from its surpassing glories by the material 
 organism. The Divine Order prescribes the descent 
 of the soul into a mortal body, and by that descent 
 the spiritual perceptions become temporarily dim- 
 med; they are folded away, as it were, in a casket, 
 and lie in a state of partial inaction during the night- 
 season of earthly unfoldment, preparatory to the 
 splendors of a new cycle of wakefulness and un- 
 obscured lucidity. 
 
 Absence of consciousness is no» proof of non-exist- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 185 
 
 ence, inasmuch as sleep and wakefulness are alter- 
 nating states of the thinking man; and these states 
 should not be confounded with the subject to which 
 they relate. The individual who becomes blind 
 from a cataract upon the eye is still in the same 
 world. Traveling, even into foreign countries, does 
 not help him to the light; but remove the film, and he 
 readily perceives that the light is all around him. 
 The spiritual senses are so eclipsed, so bleared with 
 the material, that we do not see the spiritual world 
 that bathes and enfolds us like a crystal ocean. 
 
 Electricity, light, magnetism, interstellar ether, — 
 these are only the realized envelopes and elastic 
 vehicles of spiritual forces. Certain conditions de- 
 velop or bring into outward expression their poten- 
 tialities. And laws, so called, are the deific methods, 
 the defined order in which the Divine Presence oper- 
 ates. Essential Spirit alone interpermeates and con- 
 stitutes the qualities of all things. There are no 
 abstract qualities, — that is to* say, qualities abstracted 
 from their substances. They inhere in them. 
 Strength is not outside of the being that exercises it. 
 Acid properties do not exist apart from the substances 
 containing them. So love, goodness, truth, are not 
 abstract powers, but necessary attributes that inhere 
 in the very constitution of every sentient being, 
 whether man or angel. Accordingly, men and 
 women are spirits now. They live and walk in the 
 spirit world, though encased in mortal clothing; 
 their sensations, qualities, and all their higher emo^ 
 tions, are also spiritual, yet veiled for the present 
 under the vestured disguise of matter. 
 
 It will be admitted that extension, divisibility, and 
 inertia are among the principal attributes of matter. 
 But be this as it may, matter at most is only the 
 unreal, shadowy shell of things — the passive or stat- 
 
1 86 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 ical condition for the action of force. It serves as 
 the limiting wall for the utilization of spiritual en- 
 ergies. It is the background upon which the pano- 
 rama of creation is projected. It is the agent of 
 reaction, as the counterpoise to action, without which 
 equilibrium and the perpetuity of movement would 
 be impossible. 
 
 The theory that force is an attribute of matter is 
 disproved by the fact of inertia. It cannot change 
 its state. It will ultimately be shown, I believe, that 
 inertia is the sole attribute otf matter, while the other 
 properties usually ascribed to it are simply secondary 
 qualities which inertia involves. Force, therefore, is 
 the antithesis of matter, not simply one of its attri- 
 butes. Will is the single attribute of force, and will 
 is self-determining, — not motion, but the antecedent 
 of motion, and the antithesis of inertia. 
 
 U A11 that we can affirm of matter," says the learned 
 Clerk Maxwell, u is that it is the recipient of im- 
 pulse and of energy." And yet materialists, and 
 doubtless the majority of ordinary men, have come to 
 think from their long familiarity with matter that 
 physical forms constitute the only real, that matter 
 is more permanent and substantial than spirit. This 
 is a fatal mistake. 
 
 This system of reasoning, on the part of material- 
 ists, fails to convince the intellect or meet the noblest 
 aspirations of the human soul. Thinkers ought to 
 understand, so it seems to me, that all laws, prin- 
 ciples, aspirations, thoughts, ideas, and unseen forces 
 are, while imponderable and invisible, allied to the 
 spiritual realm of existence, the realm of the real, the 
 perpetual, the permanent, and the immortal ! 
 
 Mortal life is only an incident — a tremendous eddy 
 in the cycling stream of time. We are the dead; 
 human bodies are little more than graves. The de- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 187 
 
 parted, the invisible, are the truly living. The 
 apostle of old denominated the body the "temple of 
 God;" while an ancient prophet, writing under the 
 divine afflatus, termed the soul "the candle of the 
 Lord." This candle, this luminous spark of divin- 
 ity, incarnated in the templed organism, manifests 
 itself through the cranial organs, and shines out 
 through the features. It takes cognizance of earthly 
 things, gathers rich experiences, builds up and per- 
 fects the spiritual body, and awaiting deliverance, is 
 finally translated in the resurrection chariot to the 
 world of spirits, the homes of the angels, the many- 
 mansioned house of the Father.* 
 
 Battle Creek, Mich. 
 
 James H. Hyslop, Ph.D., Professor of Logic and 
 Ethics, Columbia University. 
 
 IMMORTALITY AND PSYCHICAL 
 RESEARCH 
 
 (From an article in the New World.) 
 
 It will be impossible in the space of this 
 article to give an adequate account of the facts in 
 
 *Dr. Peebles, who is a well-known spiritualist, believes 
 that the souls of certain peculiarly organized persons at times 
 leave their bodies and traverse the spheres of infinity. In his 
 book "Immortality," he cites such instances, and gives also 
 the testimony of many spirits who have communicated with 
 mediums or psychics in this life. 
 
1 88 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 this investigation, which claims scientific evidence for 
 immortality.* 
 
 It would be an easy matter to criticize any abbrevi- 
 ated account of the case, and hence I must leave the 
 interested student to go to the original documents for 
 an examination of the evidence himself ; this should 
 be done with extreme care, or not at all. The only 
 duty that I can perform here is to state my own con- 
 clusions after ten years' study and skeptical reserva- 
 tions in the case, and it is my purpose still to maintain 
 as much skeptical reservation as the circumstances 
 will allow. 
 
 The first thing to remark is the alternative hypo- 
 theses which have to be entertained in the explanation 
 of the phenomena obtained in the investigation of this 
 one case of alleged mediumship (Mrs. Piper.) 
 They are five: fraud, illusion, suggestion, telepathy, 
 spiritism. ... I shall not waste time or space 
 in proving that there is no fraud involved. For 
 every one who is familiar with the history of the case 
 and the precautions observed to secure acceptable re- 
 sults, the question of conscious fraud is thrown out 
 of court, and it is regarded as a waste of energy to 
 discuss the matter with any one. . . . Nor can 
 I take time to prove the genuineness of the trance. 
 This is adequately established in the reports of the 
 case, and, if doubted, can easily be proved or dis- 
 proved by one thousandth part of the time, trouble, 
 and expense that the Society has given to the in- 
 vestigation of the case. Assuming this genuineness, 
 as I do here, the investigator finds that there is abso- 
 lutely no resource for fraud of any sort except that 
 
 *Referring to the history of the Society for Psychical 
 Research, of which that portion of the article preceding 
 these extracts treats. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 189 
 
 of unconscious fraud. But he cannot even enter 
 upon the reports without discovering that it accounts 
 for nothing without assuming telepathy in combina- 
 tion with it, and, this once supposed, the whole possi- 
 bility of the supernormal is admitted, and there is no 
 need of using the hypothesis of fraud, except as a 
 formal method of limiting the actual field of the 
 supernormal. After finding that I had to dismiss 
 both conscious and unconscious fraud from my judg- 
 ment of the phenomena, and after reading the reports 
 with the utmost care, I felt that possibly the evidence 
 for the spiritistic theory might still be largely weak- 
 ened by suggestion from the sitters, and possibly 
 somewhat by illusions of interpretation applied to 
 the incidents. I was convinced that telepathy was 
 necessary to explain some of them, even if suggestion 
 did account for a part of the record, and if spiritism 
 was not to be accepted. My supposition was based 
 upon a misunderstanding of the perfection of the 
 record itself, as the early reports were admittedly 
 imperfect and open to qualification from suspicion o>f 
 this sort. Hence I arranged for sittings myself, 
 which I conducted under conditions that completely 
 excluded illusion and suggestion on, my part and 
 fraud on the part of the medium. I cannot detail 
 the conditions here, but shall do so in my report, but 
 they admit fraud only on the part of Dr. Hodgson 
 and myself, and the facts obtained in the experiments 
 were such that I unhesitatingly assert that I shall 
 have to bear the brunt of all the suspicion on that 
 account. For myself, then, I am reduced to a choice 
 between telepathy and the spiritistic theory to explain 
 the phenomena, and, for the present at least, I prefer 
 the spiritistic view, or, perhaps, more respectably 
 stated, the claim that the immortality of the soul has 
 come within the sphere of legitimate scientific belief. 
 
190 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 {From Proceedings of the Society for Physical Re- 
 search, Vol. xvi., Part xli., Oct., igoi.) 
 . . . (P. 246.) When it comes to collecting 
 facts or statements purporting to represent a tran- 
 scendental world, we must remember that there are 
 two wholly distinct problems involved which ought 
 not to be confused. The first is the existence of such 
 a world, and the second is the conditions that charac- 
 terize it. What will "prove" or render possible or 
 probable the first will or may leave the second un- 
 touched. Taken in the special form of spiritism the 
 two problems are ( 1 ) the existence of spirits, and 
 (2) their mode of life. Unfortunately it seems that 
 the majority of mankind, scientific and unscientific 
 alike, have such a morbid interest in the latter question 
 that they wholly ignore both the place which it should 
 have in the truly scientific mind and the necessary in- 
 solubility of the problem in any such terms as they 
 have been accustomed to represent their knowledge. 
 Our chief complaint against the average spiritualist 
 is that he assumes to know and describe the condi- 
 tions of a life for which we have no> experience or 
 immediate data to make it intelligible. It ill be- 
 comes the scientific man to put himself on the level of 
 the people that he effects to despise. But he does 
 so when he asserts or assumes that we must know the 
 conditions of a transcendental life before we can 
 accept it as a fact. All our intelligible knowledge is 
 represented by some form of sensory, or at least 
 terrestrial experience. We cannot suppose any sen- 
 sory phenomena in a discarnate soul with its loss of 
 
 *This Part, of over 600 pages, consists entirely of Prof. 
 Hyslop's Report on Mrs. Piper, with Addenda. It is a 
 remarkably painstaking, impartial and interesting investiga- 
 tion. 
 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 191 
 
 the very conditions of such, though, if we knew more 
 than we do, we might find other means of getting 
 impressions. But this assumption is too precarious 
 to build our hypothesis upon it. Whatever the ex- 
 periences of a discarnate soul, supposing it a fact, we 
 have no means in the media of our scientific know- 
 ledge to determine how we shall think them. It 
 would require the presence of a spiritual body even 
 to suggest anything analogous to our sensory im- 
 pressions. But a surviving soul, assuming that it 
 has any consciousness of the past, could very well 
 express or think in terms of its terrestrial life, and it 
 would have to do so if there were any possibility of 
 proving this survival. Hence the problem of per- 
 sonal identity is the first question to 1 be settled. 
 
 What claims to be a spirit must be made to prove 
 its veracity by proving its personal identity, and it 
 can do this only by narrating its own terrestrial his- 
 tory in a way to break the theory of telepathy. The 
 facts also must be verifiable. But when it has estab- 
 lished its veracity, it does not follow that we are to 
 accept any statements regarding transcendental con- 
 ditions of life as intelligible. Veracity and intelligi- 
 bility are not convertible. We may accept the ver- 
 acity of a spirit after its identity has been proved, 
 and yet, without rejecting the truth of its statements 
 about spirit life, refuse to treat them as in any way 
 important or intelligible for us. Statements about a 
 discarnate life are, of course, worthless as evidence, 
 because they are unverifiable, and even if veracious 
 are in addition not necessarily intelligible. It is thus 
 strange that men pretending to be scientific express 
 their willingness to be converted to 1 spiritism, if we 
 shall only tell them what the conditions of life are in 
 which a disembodied soul lives. 
 
 They avow their readiness to accept a doctrine on 
 
1 92 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 both unverifiable and unintelligible evidence. I for 
 one refuse to do this. I have no interest in the con- 
 ditions of such existence until I get there, unless they 
 can be made intelligible to me. I refuse to be drawn 
 aside from the only rational problem of science, 
 which is personal identity, because within that field 
 the facts, being reminiscences, may be both verifiable 
 and intelligible. This limitation of the problem 
 may make it insoluble in the estimation of some 
 people. So be it: nevertheless, I admit no prob- 
 lem as prior to that of identity, and I consider any 
 demand for unverifiable data and statements to in- 
 volve a point of view worthy only of those whose 
 follies and fraud have made it all but impossible to 
 discuss a hereafter with patience or respect. The 
 man who sets up for a scientist should be the last to 
 sympathize with such a position, and should know 
 both his method and the nature of the problem suf- 
 ficiently to escape illusions on so* fundamental a 
 question. Spiritualism ought not to* have a rival in 
 the follies of the scientist who merely shelters himself 
 under the shadow of a great authority without in- 
 telligence, and thus converts his own standard into 
 credulity. 
 
 It is apparent from all this that I give my ad- 
 hesion to the theory that there is a future life and 
 persistence of personal identity, that I am willing 
 to make it provisional upon the establishment, 
 by the non-believer in the supernormal of any kind, 
 of sufficient telepathy, in combination with the other 
 necessary processes, to account for the whole amazing 
 result. All other questions I put out of court as 
 not relevant, especially as there is not one sentence in 
 my record from which I could even pretend to deduce 
 a conception of what the life beyond the grave is. I 
 have kept my mind steadily and only on the question 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 193 
 
 whether some theory could not explain away the facts 
 rather than accept spiritism. But I think that every- 
 one without exception would admit that, superficially 
 at least, the phenomena represent a good case for 
 spiritism as a rational possibility. The fact of satis- 
 fying the criterion for personal identity can hardly be 
 disputed by anyone on any theory whatever, whether 
 of frauds, telepathy or spiritism. Hence, after ex- 
 cluding fraud, the only question is whether it is more 
 consistent with the data at hand to believe that they 
 can be better accounted for by telepathy with its 
 necessary adjuncts than by the survival of conscious- 
 ness after death. 
 
 I do not care how we conceive this survival, 
 whether in the form of the traditional "spirit," or in 
 the form of some centre of force either with or with- 
 out the accompaniment of a "spiritual body," or 
 again in the form of a continued mode of the Abso- 
 lute. With these questions I have nothing to do as 
 preliminary, but only as subsequent to the determi- 
 nation of personal identity. I am satisfied if the 
 evidence forces us in our rational moods to tolerate 
 the spiritistic theory as rationally possible and 
 respectable, as against stretching telepathy and its 
 adjuncts into infinity and omniscience. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 J. T. Trowbridge, A. M. } Author, in "My Own 
 Story." 
 Fully half a century ago, I became familiar with 
 the phenbmena of spiritualism, and had in my early 
 and late investigations of them some quite astound- 
 ing experiences, which no arguments based upon 
 "jugglery," "hypnotism," "thought-transference," 
 "sublimal consciousness," or anything of that sort, 
 under whatever guise, could ever explain away. I 
 
i 9 4 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 was convinced that, under all the frauds and foibles 
 that could be charged against mediums and their 
 dupes, there were living truths, — that man has spirit- 
 discerning powers, and that those who have embarked 
 before us on the Unknown may send back to us 
 signals more or less intelligible through the mists 
 that have closed in upon their voyage. I found in 
 the communications so much that was confused and 
 misleading that I gradually ceased to consult them 
 after I had become fully satisfied as to their source; 
 but the faith, thus established, has never faltered; 
 and to it I have owed, especially in times of bereave- 
 ment, many consolations. Even though the identity 
 of the voices may sometimes rest in doubt, much yet 
 remains. The assurance remains, not new indeed, 
 but ever more vitally renewed, that the soul itself 
 has occult faculties that are rarely developed in this 
 state of existence, but which presuppose a more eth- 
 ereal condition, fitted for their unfolding, as the sub- 
 merged bud of the water-lily, struggling upward from 
 the ooze, and groping dimly through the grosser ele- 
 ment, is a prophecy of the light and air in which it is 
 to open and flower. 
 Arlington, Mass. 
 
 Mr. Henry Wood, author, Ex-President Metaphysi- 
 cal Club of Boston, in "God's Image in Man," 
 and "Studies in the Thought World." 
 
 (From "God's Image in Man.") 
 
 THE UNSEEN REALM 
 
 . Are the spiritual bodies of our friends 
 and neighbors — yea, and of the race — who have 
 passed on, all about and among us continually ? Such 
 a conclusion seems probable from analogy, science, 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 195 
 
 revelation, and intuition. It is far more reasonable 
 to believe that on the Mount of Transfiguration, 
 Moses and Elias were disclosed to the sharpened 
 spiritual perception of the disciples, than that they 
 came from a far-away paradise. When Elisha 
 prayed that his servant's eyes might be opened, u he 
 saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses 
 and chariots of fire round about Elisha." They were 
 already there, but the vision was conditioned upon the 
 spiritual perception of the young man. 
 
 Our notional materialism confers substantiality 
 upon gold, silver, iron, houses, lands, railroads; but 
 as they are not real forces, we are guilty of uncon- 
 scious idolatry. They are nothing until acted on by 
 the unseen ; but a thought-wave, idea, or doctrine can 
 transform nations. We are constantly misled by 
 identifying ourselves with our sensuous nature. Men 
 carelessly, and even jocosely, speak of those who 
 have passed on as ghosts, shades, phantoms, spec- 
 tres, and apparitions. But much more exactly such 
 definitions would fit the visible body, which with 
 scientific exactness may be called an unsubstantial 
 appearance. Men say, we do not want abstractions; 
 give us terra firma. Yet but for the subtle force of 
 the unseen, the earth itself would disintegrate and dis- 
 solve into mere vapor. ... In the spiritual 
 domain there are various spheres of attainment which 
 the Christ denominated as u many mansions." The 
 divine forces of involution which have eternally rad- 
 iated from God are gathered, individualized, and 
 evolved with increasingly compact forms in their 
 upward return towards the Father's House. Divine 
 involution is the basis and inspiration of human* 
 evolution. If the life principle had not first been 
 involved into the acorn, it could not be evolved into 
 the oak. The potential "son* of God" have been 
 
196 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 upon a journey into a far country, but their inherent 
 heritage only becomes manifest during their return 
 towards the Paternal Mansion. To human sense 
 the upward course is a narrow, thorny path, but to 
 spiritual discernment it is the King's highway. 
 
 Said Sir Edwin Arnold: "Where does nature 
 show signs of breaking off her magic, that she should 
 stop at the five senses, and the sixty or seventy ele- 
 ments? Nothing but ignorance and despondency 
 forbids that the senses, so etherialized and enhanced, 
 and so fitly adapted to fine combinations of an 
 advanced entity, would discover art divinely elevated, 
 science splendidly expanding, bygone loves and sym- 
 pathies explaining and obtaining their purpose, activ- 
 ities set free for vaster cosmic service, abandoned 
 hopes and efforts realized in rich harvests at last, 
 regrets and repentances softened by the discovery 
 that although in this universe nothing can be for- 
 given, everything may be repaid and repaired. To 
 call such a life Heaven, or the Hereafter, is a tem- 
 porary concession to the illusions of speech and 
 thought. It would rather be a state, a plane of fac- 
 ulties, to expand again into other and higher states 
 or planes; the slowest and lowest in the race of life 
 coming in last, but each, everywhere finally attain- 
 mg. 
 
 The soul during its long process of spiritual evolu- 
 tion utilizes for a short time its bodily instrument as 
 a disciplinary and educational agency. But, by hom- 
 age to the form instead of the substance, man, has 
 bound himself by unnumbered limitations, and turned 
 his back upon his princely heritage. He has loaded 
 the simple and natural Christ-religion with superficial 
 traditions, and is struggling under dead weights, 
 which he has placed upon his own shoulders. If we 
 would listen intently we might hear the divine voice 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 197 
 
 within assuring us that God is our life; that spirit is 
 the only substantial entity, and that love is the only 
 law. 
 
 In conceiving of the spiritual world we are too 
 much inclined to identify it with a future life. It is 
 there, but it is also here. It is that rich, divine realm 
 in which our souls live, move, and nourish them- 
 selves, both here and hereafter. It is the outflow of 
 the superabundant life and love of God upon which 
 we feed and grow. All nature is an object-lesson 
 showing the wisdom and beneficence which pulsate 
 in the invisible counterpart behind it. Our spiritual 
 vision must be sharpened so that we can penetrate 
 through forms and veils and behold the warm exub- 
 erance beneath. The spiritual faculty within us is 
 always in touch with God, and is the organ through 
 which we commune with spiritual spheres. The 
 intellect may reason about God, but only the intuitive 
 perception can see and feel Him. 
 
 We may not suppose that of necessity one gets 
 deeper into the spiritual world by the act of laying 
 off the material organism. There is an outer and an 
 inner, a spiritual and unspiritual, there, as well as 
 here. True spirituality on either plane is only gained 
 by earnest aspiration. It is often thought that when 
 the body, with its clogs and limitations, is laid off, 
 great spiritual progress can be made at a bound; 
 but orderly development can only be gradual in any 
 condition. Form, locality, climate, and plane have 
 little to do with soul-progress, which is only made by 
 a growing illumination in its divine centre. Life, 
 love, and truth must be earnestly sought for their 
 own intrinsic sakes. The earthly, selfish, and grov- 
 elling thought-currents must be checked and over- 
 come hereafter as well as in the present embodi- 
 ment. ... 
 
198 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 The exact nature of the future unseen universe has 
 not been disclosed. Can Revelation and spiritual dis- 
 cernment give a faint hint of its glories? Paul 
 declares that "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, 
 neither have entered into the heart of man the things 
 which God hath prepared for them that love Him." 
 Saint John, u the divine," in the Apocalypse, by means 
 of symbolic imagery, paints a picture of its splendors 
 limited only by the power of human language. 
 
 Can we, through the telescope of spirit, catch a 
 glimpse of a pure soul, who after a quick and uncon- 
 scious transition lands upon the delectable shore? A 
 new but real universe is unveiled. Gathered to wel- 
 come the new initiate are the dear friends and neigh- 
 bors who already are citizens. Hands are clasped, 
 and a warm unison of love thrills through reunited 
 souls. Everything which has been lost is found. 
 Parents fold long-absent children in fond embrace, 
 and brothers, sisters, and dear ones are restored and 
 welcomed. The newly arrived celestial candidate is 
 taken by the hand and introduced to grand spiritual 
 activities, and his willing powers enlisted in unex- 
 pected and delightful ministries of loving service. 
 Amazing opportunities for spiritual advancement 
 open before him. What wonderful visions! What 
 restoration and compensation! What a succession 
 of far-reaching vistas! How many mysteries ex- 
 plained and questions satisfied! What a blossom- 
 ing of new beauty, color, and fragrance, of which 
 he has been all unaware ! How many new spiritual 
 senses unfolded! What journeys of exploration, 
 untrammelled by the limitations of time and space! 
 What an expansion of knowledge! What a golden 
 sunshine of love revealed to the enraptured gaze as 
 rapidly as its brightness can be endured! What 
 grand missionary tours to planes below to* carry help, 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 199 
 
 guidance, and instruction! What illimitable cycles 
 of spiritual progression stretch out and wind upwards 
 towards the Great White Throne! 
 (From "Studies in the Thought World.") 
 
 A CORRECTED STANDPOINT IN PSYCH- 
 ICAL RESEARCH 
 
 . The real man (ego) is mind, soul, 
 spirit. He is soul and has a body. Nearly all will 
 agree to this proposition in the abstract ; but so soon 
 as they begin to reason in any direction, they uncon- 
 sciously abandon their premises, and practically 
 regard themselves as material beings. With daily 
 consciousness centred exclusively upon the sensuous 
 and objective, it becomes almost impossible, from 
 force of habit, to maintain a correct standpoint and 
 perspective. How greatly it would simplify all 
 psychological research to squarely hold the position, 
 not that we have souls, but that we are souls — yes, 
 spirits — now, as much as we ever shall be. The 
 physical organism is no part of us, but it is expres- 
 sion made visible — nothing more and no less. To be 
 sure, it is educational; for it is in accordance with 
 law that soul must have an experience in matter. But 
 it is important that we educate our thought to regard 
 the body only as an instrument belonging to the man, 
 entirely secondary and resultant. 
 
 If soul be only a function or exercise of body, as 
 conventional "science" and materia medica have prac- 
 tically assumed, then immortality is illogical ; for 
 when a thing perishes, its functions, which depend 
 upon it, perish also. 
 
 Planting our feet on the foundation — practical as 
 well as theoretical — that man, the ego, even on the 
 present plane, is soul, and soul only, many things are 
 
200 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 brought near and made distinct that have been, dim 
 and distant. It at once furnishes a broad outlook 
 from a standpoint that cannot shift. It renders super- 
 fluous such terms as "supernatural," and even "super- 
 normal," and enlarges the boundaries of the natural 
 and normal beyond all limitation. It renders the 
 human sense of life spiritual rather than material. 
 It lifts man above an earthly gravitation that is bur- 
 densome and enslaving. It unfolds a consciousness 
 in him that he is a "living soul," and not merely 
 an animated physical organism. It discovers him as 
 made in the "image of God," because a spirit, which, 
 though finited in its range, is the natural offering of 
 the Universal Spirit. It makes religion — not dogma, 
 which is quite another thing — not only spiritual, but 
 natural and scientific. It lifts order, law, and inter- 
 relationship from their material limitations, so that 
 the whole "supernatural" realm becomes unified and 
 systematic rather than chaotic and capricious. It 
 interprets "death", as only the cessation of a false 
 sense of life. It restores to man (the soul) a con- 
 sciousness of his primal independence and divine 
 sonship. It lifts him from the animal plane, and 
 bids him regard his body as his temporary and useful 
 servant, instead of his hard and tyrannical master. It 
 interprets pain as a friendly monitor whose real pur- 
 pose and discipline are kindly, rather than as a deadly 
 antagonist. It discloses the divine in man as well as 
 the real man, or, in other words, restores him to 
 himself. It reconciles and brings together those two 
 traditional antagonists, Science and Religion, which 
 for so long have suspected and frowned upon each 
 other. It opens to view Truth as an harmonious 
 unit, and changes general discord into harmony, even 
 though all its vibrations may not yet be understood. 
 In its last analysis it does away with evil, per se\ as 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 201 
 
 an entity, for while admitting it as an apparent and 
 relative condition, it finds in its unripened and imper- 
 fect stage the potency and promise of endless progres- 
 sion and unfoldment. 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Irving Bacheller, B. S., M. S., A. M., Author, in 
 "Eben Holden." 
 
 "If any man oughter go to Heaven, he had," said 
 Uncle Eb, as he drew on his boots. 
 
 "Think he's in. Heaven ?" I asked. 
 
 "Haint a doubt uv it," said he, as he chewed a 
 moment, preparing for expectoration. 
 
 "What kind of a place do you think it is?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Fer one thing," he said, deliberately, "Nobody 
 '11 die there, 'less he'd ought to; don't believe there's 
 goin' t' be any need o' swearin' er quarrelin' there. 
 To my way o' thinkin' it'll be a good deal like Dave 
 Brower's farm — nice, smooth land and no stun on it, 
 an' hills an' valleys an' white clover a plenty, an' wheat, 
 an' corn higher'n a man's head. No bull thistles, no 
 hard winters, no< narrer contracted fools; no long 
 faces, an' plenty o' work. Folks sayin' 'How d'y 
 do?' 'stid o' 'good-by', all the while — comin' 'stid 
 o' goin'. There's goin' to be some kind o' fun there. 
 I ain' no idee what 'tis. Folks like it an' I kind 
 o' believe 'at when God's gin a thing t' everybody he 
 thinks purty middlin' well uv it." 
 
 "Anyhow, it seems a hard thing to die," I re- 
 marked. 
 
 "Seems so," he said thoughtfully. "Jes' like 
 ever'thing else 1 — them 'that knows much about 
 it don' have a great deal t' say. Looks t' me like this : 
 a cal'ate a man hes on the everidge ten things his 
 heart is sot on — what is the word I want — ?" 
 
202 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 "Treasures?" I suggested. 
 
 "Thet's it," said he. "Ev'ry one hes about ten 
 treasures. Some hev more — some less. Say one's his 
 strength, one's his plan, the rest is them he loves, 
 an' the more he loves the better 'tis fer him. Wall, 
 they begin t' go one by one. Some die, some turn 
 agin' him. Fin's it hard t' keep his allowance. When 
 he's only nine he's lost eggzackly one-tenth of his 
 dread o' dyin'. Bime bye he counts up — one — two 
 — three — four — five — an' that's all ther is left. He 
 figgers it up careful. His strength is gone, his 
 plan's a failure, mebbe, an' this one's dead an' thet 
 one's dead, an' t'other one better be. Then it's 'bout 
 half ways with him. If he lives 'till the ten treas- 
 ures is all gone, God gives him one more — thet's 
 death. An' he can swop thet off an' git back all he's 
 lost. Then he begins t 'think it's a purty dum good 
 thing, after all. Purty good thing, after all," he 
 repeated, gaping as he spoke. 
 
 He began nodding shortly, and soon he went asleep 
 in his chair." 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Daniel S. Martin, A. M., Ph.D., Professor of Geol- 
 ogy, Presbyterian College for Women, in 
 i( Christian Evolutionism" and "Scientific Con- 
 ceptions of a Spiritual World."* 
 (From "Christian Evolutionism.") 
 
 Lastly, as the crown of its organic pro- 
 gress, man appears upon the: globe, — a being pre- 
 senting a singular union of widely separated attri- 
 
 *Papers read before the American Institute of Christian 
 Philosophy in 1887 and 1890, afterward printed in "Chris- 
 tian Thought," the organ of the Society, and also in pamphlet 
 form. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 203 
 
 butes. On the one hand, he is linked to his predeces- 
 sors by a unity of structure that compels the belief 
 of a kindred physical origin. On the other, he is 
 possessed of additional faculties which raise him to 
 a plane of existence far above any other organic 
 forms. Here again, the Christian evolutionist stands 
 between two opposing schools of thought, and holds 
 the only view that can harmonize them, — though 
 regarded by both as a sort of intellectual outcast. He 
 recognizes in man a twofold character, a physical 
 unity with the organic world, and a moral and spir- 
 itual nature which lifts him into another sphere of 
 being. Man stands as the culmination of the process 
 of organic development, — toward which and for 
 which all that process has gone on through the ages 
 of geologic time,— and also as the first representative 
 of a higher order of life, kindred with the very 
 Author of the universe Himself. In the develop- 
 ment of human society and human history, we again 
 trace the same workings of law and progress as before 
 in the physical and the organic world, though modi- 
 fied into yet greater complexity by the new element 
 of free and self-determining wills. But in all the 
 course of humanity upon the globe, we can recognize 
 the Divine purpose, guiding and governing the 
 whole, and weaving into a great connected scheme the 
 countless secondary agencies of man and of nature. 
 
 But is this the end ? Science and philosophy have 
 reached their limit, and have no more to tell us. Are 
 we then to suppose that the Evolution of the universe 
 has attained its highest point? For answer, I appeal 
 to two independent sources, — analogy and revela- 
 tion. 
 
 Analogy would lead us to the suggestion that there 
 may be as much above us as below us, as much before 
 us as behind. That there should be classes and orders 
 
2o 4 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 of intelligent beings as far beyond us in their intellec- 
 tual and moral powers, as we are beyond the ani- 
 mals, would be a perfectly legitimate inference from 
 the facts already known. That there may lie before 
 ourselves in the future as great advances as we have 
 already made from the organic germ, would be only 
 in the line of analogy. The objection that we have 
 no sight or experience of anything of this kind, has 
 no place here ; since no animal in its larval state can 
 have any experience of its coming stage of advance- 
 ment. If now we turn to Revelation, this is precisely 
 what we find, — a world of beings higher than our- 
 selves, unrecognized by our limited senses, yet around 
 and above us evermore, — u angels and archangels, 
 thrones and dominions, principalities and powers in 
 heavenly places,' ' — speeding through the universe, 
 executing the Divine government, ministering to men 
 in this life, serving and rejoicing forever. For our- 
 selves, it tells us that such a life is before us, in the 
 coming periods of our development ; and that all the 
 present and past of our being are but stages of 
 growth and preparation. 
 
 Here I think we approach a point, — like one who 
 emerges from the forests of a mountain-side, and sees 
 opening before him a marvelous prospect of beauty 
 and grandeur, flooded with sunlight and stretching 
 away into unknown vistas of ever-widening vision — 
 where we begin to gain some conception of the glory 
 of the universe, with its Divine plan and order, its 
 systems of time-worlds and space-worlds, its endless 
 reaches of power, wisdom, and love. U A11 things 
 are of God," — one grand, united cosmos, physical, 
 organic, intellectual, spiritual, — planned by Him, 
 upheld by Him, administered by Him evermore, 
 through ten thousand forms of law and force and 
 development. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 205 
 
 Walk with me through the halls of a geological 
 museum, and study the successive stages in the evolu- 
 tion of life, as given us in the great rock-written 
 volume of the world's history, — nay, may I not say, 
 the newly revealed "tables of stone," graven by the 
 hand of God ? What is the meaning of it all ? What 
 value, in fine, has it for me or my fellow-men? It is 
 curious, interesting, wonderful; but is it no more? 
 Has it no message for the soul ? I hold that it has, 
 — a great and glorious message. It says to me, "Be- 
 hold here the designs and ways of God; — the long 
 preparation, the ever-unfolding plan, the ever-con- 
 tinuing purpose, leading up to man in his present 
 stage of advancement. See the way by which organic 
 development has come thus far; and now, turn and 
 look forward. From the past, judge the future; 
 and with scientific analogy on one side and the 
 revealed word on the other, conceive of the higher 
 developments, the loftier powers, the nobler forms 
 of organism and environment, in the coming stages 
 of the Evolution of the Divine plan." Such is its 
 message. All that long strange succession of past 
 forms of life becomes luminous with such a thought, 
 and turns from an obscure and problematical record 
 to a prophecy of joy and glory. All the longings 
 and strivings of hopes that we feel within, are recog- 
 nized as the stirrings of yet undeveloped powers in a 
 larval stage of being; and we begin to understand 
 more clearly what is meant by the Scripture hints as 
 to the groaning creation "waiting for the manifesta- 
 tion of the sons of God." We now look forward to 
 the experience of death, as simply the form in which 
 we are to pass into the next and higher stage of our 
 development, and enter upon a new environment. 
 
 Of the glory and promise of this restored life to 
 
206 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 come, scientific analogy, as before remarked, gives 
 many suggestive hints which confirm the Scripture 
 presentations. A condition of vastly expanded pow- 
 ers, of freedom from the limitations and burdens 
 which hamper us in the present stage, of capacities 
 for enjoyment beyond the grasp of our now imper- 
 fectly developed faculties, — these would find their 
 natural accompaniment in a new environment of 
 beauty and sublimity, adapted to a further evolved 
 humanity. Thus we see the strict naturalness of ail 
 the Scripture intimations of a heavenly world of light 
 and glory, of tireless activity joined with eternal rest, 
 of a u kingdom prepared from the foundation of the 
 world" for the abode of redeemed spirits in the pres- 
 ence and communion of God. 
 
 We perceive, in the light of these views, the mean- 
 ing of Revelation where it lays such stress on the peril 
 attaching to what it terms u the world," as the mortal 
 foe of God and our higher life. Not the natural 
 world with its beauty, not the social world with its 
 joys, not the intellectual and aesthetic world, with 
 their pleasing exercise of our powers, — does the 
 Scripture properly mean by this term ; but "the spirit 
 of the world," the satisfaction and absorption of the 
 soul in its present environment, of whatever kind. 
 "Be not conformed to this world;" — how the familiar 
 text glows with new meaning to> the Christian evo- 
 lutionist! "Love not the world, neither the things 
 that are in the world, . . . for the world pass- 
 eth away, and the fashion of it, but he that doeth the 
 will of God abideth forever." 
 
 Here, moreover, we find the solution of the great 
 problem of sorrow and pain. On the one hand, a 
 being whose higher faculties are in bondage to the 
 lower, and who is developing away from the real 
 destiny and purpose of his being, can find no happi- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 207 
 
 ness and no peace, here or hereafter. The difficulty 
 is inherent, and no power in the universe can alter 
 the results. On the other hand, for those who are 
 saved from this condition by Divine grace, a differ- 
 ent relation appears. Their present life is not only a 
 period of preparation, but one of corrective disci- 
 pline, and that discipline determined by Divine wis- 
 dom and fatherly love, for the sake of their future 
 happiness. Then, indeed, the darkness and bitterness 
 are gone from the ills of life. Not despair but hope, 
 not rebellion but humility, are now known to be the 
 purpose, and found to be the result of sorrows, trials, 
 disappointments, and losses, in the present stage of 
 our being. Thus they become bearable, as a neces- 
 sary part of our training, and as tending to dislodge 
 the soul from satisfaction and stagnation in its lower 
 environment, and to urge it forward to higher lines 
 of development. 
 
 (From Scientific Conceptions of a Spiritual 
 World.") 
 . Why have I dwelt thus at length on these 
 points, which really seem so obvious, if not so com- 
 monplace? Simply because I wish to emphasize the 
 thought that runs through them all, — to wit, that we 
 find in the material universe a rising scale of grades 
 or modes of existence; and that each higher one 
 reveals to us powers, processes, and products so far 
 beyond, and different from, those known in the 
 grades below, that they could not be conceived or 
 predicted from anything in those lower realms of 
 being. Moreover, the history of the development 
 of our globe, as given by geology, shows us that these 
 successive grades or modes of existence have 
 appeared on the earth in an order of time correspond- 
 ing to their order of rank; and that each in turn has 
 
208 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 brought to view a new world of material possibili- 
 ties and powers. 
 
 Now I desire to project this thought further, and 
 to show how it leads us onward to other and higher 
 forms and capacities of existence. The Scripture tells 
 us of orders of beings far more elevated and 
 advanced than our own. It tells us of a future state 
 of existence for ourselves, — not merely immortality 
 of the soul, but resurrection of the body in a higher 
 and more advanced condition. Nay, more; it tells 
 us that such superhuman beings are ever around us 
 and watching us, and that in rare cases they have 
 manifested themselves within the range of our phys- 
 ical senses, and have been seen and conversed with by 
 men. Further, still, it tells us of the fact that one 
 Man has already risen from the dead, and has walked 
 and talked on the earth in this advanced form of the 
 body, — appearing and disappearing as to human 
 sight, and finally passing out of view in the atmos- 
 phere, with a promise to return one day in like man- 
 ner as He went. 
 
 Now the point of present interest is this, — that 
 all which is thus told us, instead of being unnatural 
 or incredible, falls into line perfectly with the known 
 facts up to our present state of advancement and 
 experience. That there should be other orders of 
 beings more highly organized than ourselves; that 
 they should have powers and faculties that we can- 
 "ot understand and can scarce imagine; that there 
 should be a future renewal of the human body with 
 capacities far beyond those that we now possess ; and 
 that such a u glorified body" has in one great instance 
 already walked the earth; all this is in full analogy 
 with scientific facts as known in the lower realms of 
 our experience. It presents no more difficulty, — 
 indeed actually less, — than the advance from inor- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 209 
 
 ganic to organic existence; from the vegetable to the 
 animal kingdom; from the animal world to the 
 world of civilized society and human arts and pro- 
 gress. Say we not truly that science discloses to us 
 processes and powers at work in the universe that may 
 well be expected to yield, in other places and periods, 
 results beyond the reach of our highest existing con- 
 ceptions ? 
 
 I trust that the three main points which I have 
 sought to emphasize will have made themselves 
 clearly apparent. Science is not materialistic and 
 earthly, save by a mere perversion of its methods and 
 scope ; because : — 
 
 I. It involves and rests upon a body of concep- 
 tions purely of the mind which are essential to any 
 connection, or any results, of observed phenomena, 
 and thus to any unity and any progress in science as 
 a whole. 
 
 II. It shows us how limited is the range of our 
 physical senses, and how the only condition needed 
 for perceiving whole worlds of existence around us, 
 now all unrevealed, would be simply an extension of 
 our present powers to respond to vibrations of higher 
 rates. It shows us that this statement is true for both 
 hearing and vision, and that hence our non-percep- 
 tion is no ground for doubting the reality of the spir- 
 itual world. 
 
 III. Science shows us, finally, that if such unseen 
 and unheard realms of being surround us, they rep- 
 resent advanced forms of development, which must 
 of necessity be unintelligible and problematical to our 
 powers of thought. But it also shows that this 
 would be in strict analogy with the past history of 
 all development, — in which the material world has 
 taken on aspects, and been filled with beings, exces- 
 
210 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 sively higher in grade, of which no hint or prediction 
 or understanding could be gained from those below. 
 
 Such, then, is what I mean by Scientific Concep- 
 tions of the Spiritual World. So far from tending 
 to weaken our belief in the Scriptures, or leading us 
 to question their divine inspiration, does not science 
 most strikingly confirm and illustrate the statements 
 and suggestions of revelation? Does it not help us to 
 clearer conceptions of what we term the spiritual 
 world and spiritual beings, when we see how they 
 range themselves in line with the world of our pres- 
 ent experience, and how close they come to the pos- 
 sibility of our perception? 
 
 But, then as it is, we cannot and we may not, 
 attempt to lift the veil that bounds our present sight 
 and sense. For the time, our environment is adapted 
 to us, and we to it. But let us hold fast to our 
 belief in the unseen; until, — as in all the history of 
 science, — u our faith in vision end." The land of 
 light, the City of God, the home of the blessed and 
 beloved, — are no* far-away fancies of devout enthu- 
 siasts. They are nearer to us than we are wont to 
 conceive. They may lie round about us from day to 
 day, and we may pass to and fro amid them, all 
 unconscious, — even as the birds that fly over halls of 
 science and legislation are unconscious of the great 
 surging tide of intellectual life that fills the thought 
 and activity of men, in the very buildings where they 
 alight and tw T itter on the roof. 
 
 Columbia, S. C. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 211 
 
 Mr. Charles Brodie Patterson, Author and Metaphy- 
 sician, Editor Mind and Arena, in "Dominion 
 and Power" and "New Thought Essays" 
 
 IMMORTALITY 
 
 (From "Dominion and Power.") . . . 
 There is proof that a great majority of the early 
 Christians believed in an immortality which was in no 
 way conditional upon the body. They looked at the 
 physical form as being fitted for the needs and 
 requirements of this earth, but they had been taught 
 that in the Father's house were many mansions, and 
 that in the laying aside of the fleshly garments they 
 would become clothed with spiritual garments ; that, 
 though the tabernacle of this house was dissolved, 
 they had a building not made with hands, eternal 
 in the heavens. 
 
 Remembering that Jesus said the spirit is the quick- 
 ening power, the flesh of no profit, we must see in the 
 resurrection a deeper meaning than that which is 
 purely physical, and that the resurrection is above 
 all things a spiritual resurrection. That is what Jesus 
 meant when he said, "If I be lifted up and attain 
 the Christ eternally, I will draw all men unto me." 
 Through the evolution of the same eternal and 
 unchanging love that brings the spiritual resurrection, 
 shall all men attain to it. There is no separation 
 between the human and the divine. The resurrection 
 of Jesus was a spiritual resurrection, the passing from 
 the consciousness of the partial to the consciousness 
 of the whole, the divine; the laying aside of every- 
 thing that could hamper or hold the soul in bond- 
 age. . . . 
 
 Eventually, it may be found that the thing which 
 at one time seemed likely to destroy man's belief in 
 
212 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 immortality, namely, scientific research and investiga- 
 tion, will become the great factor in causing the minds 
 of people to return to a belief in it, or something more 
 than a belief; because the scientific mind of the pres- 
 ent time is waking to the fact that the material world 
 is not all, that there are forces, powers, at w r ork in 
 the universe which transcend all material things. 
 
 Conservation of force and the indestructibility of 
 matter tend to show that in the great economy of 
 nature nothing is ever lost. We see people walking 
 about on this earth endowed with animating life and 
 physical form, and we assert that not one atom in 
 these forms can cease to be, nor one particle of energy 
 be lost. We are conscious of an intelligence controlling 
 and directing the physical organism in every part, and 
 everything leads us to believe that it is in all ways 
 superior to the outer form. Scientifically, we are 
 coming to know that this intelligence created, or 
 brought into existence and gave being to' the very 
 form which it now controls. 
 
 The law of evolution goes to prove that for ages 
 life has been tending from lower to higher stages — 
 differentiation taking place until in the fulness of 
 time man appeared on the earth. At any stage in 
 evolution we shall find intelligence displayed in the 
 construction of form, this intelligence ever tending 
 to adapt the form to the requirements of its environ- 
 ments. Is it logical, is it scientific, to say that with 
 the passing of the form this intelligence ceases to- be, 
 or becomes dissipated? Of course some may retort 
 that as the physical form becomes dissipated, why not 
 the intelligence ? But for that matter there are dissi- 
 pation and renewal of the physical form taking place 
 all through life, and yet greater intelligence is con- 
 stantly evolving, and what takes place at the so-called 
 death is only dissipation in a greater degree. Further- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 213 
 
 more, it is a well-known fact that the minds of peo- 
 ple are often clear and active when the life of the 
 body is nearly gone. 
 
 The people who would have us believe that this lit- 
 tle span of life is the beginning and end of all, and 
 that the physical brain is the mind of man, often 
 bring up such illustrations as an injury to the brain, 
 a fracture of the skull, or something of the kind, 
 interfering with mental action ; and these they think 
 tend to prove conclusively that with the entire 
 destruction of the brain comes the entire destruction 
 of mind. Again, they have cited the circumstances 
 where the brain has been trepanned and there has 
 been a return of thought and reason. This, instead 
 of tending to prove their case, in reality proves the 
 reverse. It shows that the mind requires a perfect 
 instrument through which to- work, and when that 
 instrument has been damaged it can no longer func- 
 tion in a proper way; but with a return to normal 
 conditions it again resumes its natural activities. 
 
 . Life and immortality are not for the few, 
 but for all; and this little earth-life is not the begin- 
 ning nor end of life's destiny. Through the countless 
 ages of the past man has been working up to what 
 he is, and in the ages to come he will grow into an 
 ever-increasing life. The thought of immortality is 
 inherent in each fibre of man's being, and, try as he 
 may, he cannot get away from it. To the wrong doer, 
 who knows that every wrong act brings with it its 
 own reward, and that the seed of vicious thought will 
 bring a harvest of pain and suffering, the outlook 
 may not be fraught with delightful anticipations; 
 but that suffering will, in the end, prove beneficial in 
 bringing him at last to a knowledge of his real duties 
 to God and man. 
 
 Jesus, the Christ, passed through the same trials and 
 
2i 4 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 temptations that we do, and it was only through meet- 
 ing those trials and temptations and overcoming 
 them that he was able to rise above the law of sin 
 and death, that law which people had believed in 
 hundreds, yea, thousands of years. He passed from 
 under its dominion and came under the dominion of 
 the law of the spirit of life which frees from sin 
 and death. 
 
 A New Testament writer says that it is the action 
 of this latter law that all must come under; that we 
 are all sons of God and joint heirs with Christ; that 
 Jesus was the first fruits of them that slept; that 
 we all sleep in the earthy man, and that all must 
 awake in the eternal man; that Jesus through his life 
 and teaching brought life and immortality to light, 
 but that life and immortality had been from the very 
 foundation of things, and that they had been through- 
 out eternity ; that in the Adam or earthy man we all 
 die to a knowledge of our true relation to God, so, 
 when we awaken in the Christ spirit that is in our 
 own lives, then we come into the fulness of life 
 and understanding; that the old things pass away; 
 that we no longer place our trust in any form or on 
 anything external to ourselves, and that life and 
 intelligence are external, and that there is no sepa- 
 ration, either in this world or in any other. 
 
 . There is no thought of the resurrection of the 
 physical body in the real Christian doctrine of life. 
 Jesus and His disciples never taught it. This body 
 is of this earth and it will never go further than this 
 earth. We all have bodies corresponding to where 
 we belong. The great truth is that the spiritual res- 
 urrection and immortality are hidden in God, are in 
 the thought of life as one, and that life is everlasting; 
 that the life and power are the ever-present indwell- 
 ing God, and through knowledge of His presence it is 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 215 
 
 given us to shape the individual life in such a way 
 as to at least overcome, to rise above, the law of sin 
 and death. We must lay all stress on the spiritual 
 resurrection, the resurrection of knowledge and the 
 life eternal, and that the law that brings one soul 
 into its spiritual freedom will bring all souls; that as 
 in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made 
 alive. 
 
 (From u New Thought Essays.") We come now 
 to the question, Can we know and realize immortal- 
 ity in the present? This brings us face to face with 
 another question, intimately related to* it: Can we 
 know anything, while in this life, of the life that lies 
 beyond this plane of mortal sense? Not long ago, 
 the Right Honorable Arthur J. Balfour, leader of 
 the British House of Commons and a member of the 
 Royal Psychical Research Society, declared in a pub- 
 lic lecture that there could be no doubt whatever that 
 under favorable conditions communication could be 
 established between persons in this life and those that 
 had passed to another plane. The greatest living 
 English scientist, Alfred Russell Wallace, and many 
 others of like eminence, take exactly the same posi- 
 tion. Thus we see how men of importance and influ- 
 ence in the world regard the matter. 
 
 It is claimed by many that we can know nothing 
 concerning any plane other than our own material 
 one; but that claim is based largely on the assump- 
 tion that because they have not proved otherwise, no 
 one else has. Usually, people that assume this atti- 
 tude give but little evidence of spiritual development; 
 while, on the other hand, many who are highly 
 developed;, spiritually, declare that nothing could 
 shake their belief in the realities of another plane 1 of 
 existence. Those claiming to have developed cer- 
 
216 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 tain soul powers say that they not only see but con- 
 verse with the departed. Still otheis are sometimes 
 under an influence that is apparently foreign to them- 
 selves, and while in that condition talk of things that 
 it is not possible for them to know through external 
 means. How is this done? Some of our occult 
 scientists say that it is through the action of the sub- 
 conscious mind; but this hypothesis utterly fails to 
 explain many occurrences that have come under my 
 own observation. 
 
 Many of the world's greatest teachers of spiritual 
 thought have made statements similar to the follow- 
 ing: "As it is in the heavens, so is it on the earth." 
 "As it is in the highest, so is it in the lowest." What 
 do they mean ? Simply this : There is one universal 
 law acting in and through all things, and, if we 
 understand the operation of that law on any one plane 
 of thought, we have the key that unlocks the secrets 
 of the universe. 
 
 How are spiritual phenomena that come to us 
 from other planes of thought to be considered — dis- 
 regarding, of course, the opinions of those who are 
 entirely skeptical? Many fully believe in "spirit- 
 communications," but with opinions greatly at vari- 
 ance. Some seem to have an idea that depar- 
 ture from its physical body endows the soul 
 with correct knowledge of all things spiritual, 
 and that, no matter what the communica- 
 tion may be, it must be accepted as truthful. Others 
 are never so happy as when engaged in obtaining cer- 
 tain kinds of "physical manifestation" — wrappings, 
 table-tipping, playing on banjos, etc. If the matter 
 were to end here, we might well say, Deliver us from 
 a knowledge of such things. But does it ? Why not 
 apply a little of the common sense we use in other 
 matters? Why not "try the spirits," and find out 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 217 
 
 if they are of God? Why not follow the injunc- 
 tion of the apostle? — "Beloved, believe not every 
 spirit." Why not recognize the working of universal 
 law here, as well as in purely physical phenomena? 
 
 . . . If a man is a liar or an ignoramus in 
 this world, his passing out of the physical form will 
 not make him a Washington nor an Aristotle. The 
 law of spiritual development is that man must work 
 from within his soul outward ; and growth is a ques- 
 tion, not of place but of earnest desire on the part of 
 the ego. 
 
 Look at the different planes of thought existing in 
 this world do you suppose that in another world peo- 
 ple will be equal in development? Far from it; the 
 mere discarding of the body will produce no change 
 of soul. . . . Messages that come from highly- 
 developed souls on the "other side" show that the 
 moral and spiritual natures are not greatly changed 
 by what we call death. People that go out of this 
 life retaining their sense desires and a love for earthly 
 pleasures live close to the earth plane. Their forms 
 are gross and non-luminous, unlike those more spirit- 
 ually developed. They do not look to the higher 
 influences of their own plane for light, but rather 
 to the people on earth with whom they have more 
 in common. Neither can the spiritually illuminated 
 of their own world help them until they become 
 awakened by the aid of souls on this plane, because 
 there is no point of contact. When once awakened, 
 however, they may be acted upon from both planes 
 of thought. In the light of this we can see why the 
 early Christian Church prayed for the souls of the 
 departed, and why one of the greatest Churches of 
 to-day continues to do so. There> is no "hell" on the 
 other shore bounded by time and space, but there is 
 one formed out of the conditions of untrue thoughts; 
 
218 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 and its duration is extended only by preferring dark- 
 ness to light. What men sow they must reap, here or 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The quality and condition of the spiritual body are 
 determined by the spiritual nature. We know this 
 to be true on this plane ; and that which is true here 
 must hold good on all other planes. Again, there are 
 thousands of people in the slums of our great cities 
 that have no point of contact with the spiritual- 
 minded; their bodies must be cared for and their 
 minds quickened before there can be that spiritual 
 awakening which can bring them in touch with the 
 spiritually developed, who would be willing and glad 
 to help them if the time were ripe. On earth we find 
 conditions analogous to those said to exist on the 
 "other side." 
 
 There is, as we know, a right way and a wrong 
 way to do everything. Spiritual scientists believe 
 that when they are in accord with law on this plane 
 they must attain true results, and when in opposition 
 they obtain false results. In psychical research, there- 
 fore, whatever may arise, we should always apply 
 the law. Idle, curious, heedless investigation can 
 bring no gain, but rather harm. One's own mental 
 and spiritual condition will determine the class of 
 souls one calls about him from the unseen world. 
 If one earnestly strives to unfold his own innate spir- 
 itual powers, the endeavor will aid him in compre- 
 hending all the mysteries that perplex him. When 
 we step out of the houses of clay we now inhabit, 
 those that we shall enter next will be beautiful or 
 otherwise as our thoughts have been good and true 
 or the reverse. We may select a mansion that is 
 beautiful if we will to do the Will of the Father. 
 
 New York City. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 219 
 
 George T. Angell, Founder and President American 
 Humane Education Society, in "Autobiograph- 
 ical Sketches" 
 
 I have been asked how to teach immortality to 
 the children in our public schools. 
 
 Suppose you tell them that the greatest scientist 
 we ever had on this continent, Agassiz, believed not 
 only in the immortality of man, but also in some form 
 of future life even for the lower intelligences; that 
 the sacred books and religious beliefs and recorded 
 spiritual experiences of nearly all nations and ages 
 teach it; and that, if all these were wanting, the 
 common sense of mankind would teach that the 
 Power that sustains the universe would not permit 
 the holy saint, martyr, mother, to only share with 
 pirates and murderers a common annihilation. 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Alexander Wilder, M. D., Physician and Author, 
 President New York School of Philosophy, As- 
 sociate Editor Metaphysical Magazine. Ex- 
 tracts from a paper read before the American 
 Akademe. 
 
 LIFE ETERNAL 
 
 In the sacred books of the Persians is the account 
 of the journey of the pure soul from this world and 
 its reception by the holy ones in the eternal regions. 
 Before setting out, it holds a vigil for three nights 
 at the head of the body which it has abandoned, dur- 
 ing which period it experiences as much bliss as all 
 living creatures enjoy. Upon its arrival at the 
 Bridge of Judgment, it is at once divested of the 
 consciousness and other qualities of mind which it 
 had derived from the material world. Immediately 
 
220 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 there appears to view the figure of a maiden, beau- 
 tiful and radiant with celestial light, powerful, per- 
 fectly developed in form, noble of mien, vigorous like 
 a youth of fifteen, fair as the fairest ones on the 
 earth. The purified one in transports of joy and won- 
 der salutes her as guardian. She replies that she is 
 the soul's immortal life, exalted yet higher by the 
 newly-born's resistance to evil while on earth, and 
 guided by her the soul enters paradise. 
 
 This vision of beatitude, this concept of the eter- 
 nal life is attainable by all who rise above the illu- 
 sions of sense, which like clouds and exhalations 
 from the ground, shut the heavens from our view. 
 The eternal world of abiding reality is not afar off 
 from any one of us. The soul, our Psyche, is able, 
 by the power which the true philosophy has revealed, 
 to strip off her caterpillar-shell and unfold her wings, 
 and thenceforth become the denizen of a higher 
 sphere. In this way, the new and more glorious 
 existence begins. "I am immortal," says 
 
 Fichte, "so< soon as I form the purpose to obey the 
 law of the spirit; I do not become so." 
 
 The faith in immortality is our noblest posses- 
 sion. It is rooted in the core of our being, and can 
 never be taken entirely away from us. It is neces- 
 sary in order to afford us a criterion by which to 
 judge and determine what is right. I would shudder 
 at the wreck which that individual would be, mentally 
 and morally, who should really suppose that from 
 the moment of bodily dissolution, he would totally 
 cease to live and be. If we would attain to 
 
 the higher wisdom, it will be necessary for us to dis- 
 card the limitations of superficial and empirical knowl- 
 edge. The narrow understanding can comprehend 
 no perception that exceeds its own dimensions. Some 
 such reason as this seems to have induced many to 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 221 
 
 presume that life is purely or chiefly corporeal, and 
 limited by bodily sensibilities. This habit of reason- 
 ing, doubtless, instigated the conjecture that there 
 can be no soul or intellection, except as the brain and 
 corporeal organism exist for its development and 
 maintenance. We may not concede to them this mag- 
 nified importance. They exist solely from the life 
 and energy which pervade them. Even the pro- 
 toplasm or initial organism which we hear so much 
 about, is such by virtue of its inherent vital principle, 
 and even then it is not of uniform character. There 
 is a protoplasm for every kind of vegetable produc- 
 tion and for every species of animal. Even though 
 it should be demonstrated, therefore, that all pro- 
 toplasms had like chemicals and organic constituents, 
 and that we perceive no form of life till we have 
 first obtained the protoplasm, nevertheless, this diver- 
 sification of kingdom, race and species, disposes of 
 the whole matter. We may relegate the entire series 
 of phenomena to the back-ground. The principle, 
 the inherent energy, must transcend manifestations. 
 
 Everything that exists has its origin from a cause 
 above and anterior to it. Eminent savants 
 
 have assured us that all matter, in its last analysis, 
 would be resolved into points of dynamic force. All 
 the interminable series of material existence are then 
 so many products of force under the direction of an 
 omnific will. Force, being absolutely without dimen- 
 sion, can be nothing else than spiritual substance ; and 
 what are termed Properties of Matter are really so 
 many manifestations of spirit. Accordingly when 
 the elements of our corporeal structures shall have 
 been dissolved, which once performed the office of 
 tissue and brain, thus serving as the vehicle of mind 
 and understanding, it does not follow that our psychic 
 nature must perish with them. In fact, this very pn> 
 
222 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 cess of disintegration is constantly going on. The 
 particles which aforetime made up our bodies and 
 brains, were afterward eliminated, and their places 
 taken by others; the vital principle which had 
 attracted and made use of them, surviving their 
 departure. While they change and pass away, this 
 abides and never loses its identity. It thus manifests 
 itself the greater as well as older; and we have good 
 reason therefore to believe that it will continue when 
 all the corporeal elements have parted from it. As 
 the kernel of wheat does not perish when its chaffy 
 envelope bursts, and it abandons its receptacle upon 
 the stalk, so its counterpart, — the soul and personal- 
 ity — does not cease to be, when it has withdrawn' 
 from the body. 
 
 In one of the Upanishads it is related that a father, 
 whose son was frivolous and skeptical, commanded 
 him to bring a fruit of the sacred fig tree. "Break 
 it," said the father; "what do> you see?" "Some 
 very small seeds," replied the son. "Break one of 
 them ; what do you see in it?" the father asked again. 
 "Nothing," answered the son. "My child," said the 
 father, "where you see nothing, there dwells a mighty 
 banyan tree!" 
 
 A reply like this may be made to those who profess 
 to doubt the truth of immortality. Perhaps it will be 
 difficult to prove it by logic and mathematical demon- 
 stration, so that the reasoning shall appear conclu- 
 sive. We are unable to cast a measuring-line over 
 the infinite. The creations of the understanding must 
 of necessity fall short of compassing the faculty of 
 the understanding itself. The fact of such inability, 
 however, does not warrant disbelief. The child in 
 embryo has lungs, but does not breathe, and 
 unweaned infants cannot rear their kind; yet in 
 both are the rudiments of the powers and functions 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 223 
 
 of adult life. We, too, can enlarge the scope of our 
 mental vision, and may yet develop faculties which 
 we do not now suspect to exist. We are not excluded, 
 therefore, from the hope of a more perfect knowing, 
 nor from a hearty faith in the Infinite and Eternal, 
 and in our own immortality as participants in the 
 Divine nature. 
 
 Goethe has aptly remarked that one who thinks 
 can never quite believe himself likely to become non- 
 existent — that he will ever cease to think and live. 
 Thus spontaneously does every human being cherish 
 the sentiment of an unending life. We are conscious, 
 during the later periods of our earthly existence, that 
 our higher ideals are yet unrealized. The conviction, 
 the prophecy, the moral consciousness hang over the 
 mind that there will yet be a field and opportunity in 
 which to accomplish them. That was a true as well 
 as beautiful saying of Charles Fourier, that every 
 desire which God has implanted in a human soul is 
 his promise of its fruition. We may rest content, 
 therefore, in the persuasion that the scope of our 
 understanding embraces only ideas which we can yet 
 realize. 
 
 The highest evidence of immortality, nevertheless, 
 is of a nature too exalted and arcane to be uttered in 
 any form of words. It is a knowledge which each 
 may possess for himself, but it may not be imparted. 
 That which is personal and subjective can hardly be 
 rendered obvious to the perception of another indi- 
 vidual. ... It has been sagaciously affirmed 
 that one must love before he can know that the object 
 is lovely. By a kindred analogy, it may be declared 
 that in order to perceive our immortality, we must 
 possess it first. Our own interior consciousness or 
 supra-consciousness is thus an abundant and sufficient 
 assurance of the fact. This illustration, however, 
 
224 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 may not necessarily be extended to the individual 
 who doubts or denies. He may not have become 
 sufficiently matured in his interior perception to en- 
 able such cognition, or from some other cause his 
 spiritual faculties may be dormant. It is not my 
 province to judge him from this. . . . Immor- 
 tality has its origin and foundation in the soul itself. 
 It is no boon extended to the inhabitants of this earth, 
 but by its inherent nature, is beyond the sphere of the 
 transitional universe. It pertains to our essential be- 
 ing in the eternal region, rather than toi our pheno- 
 menal existence in Time. We do not receive it, 
 because it was always an essential of our spiritual 
 nature. By the knowing of this we perceive 4*d are 
 cognizant of the infinite Verity. We apprehend our 
 true relations as having our citizenship in the heavenly 
 world. By this knowledge we are made pure and 
 holy; we are enlightened and led to live and act as 
 immortal beings. ... It is but a step further 
 to acknowledge unqualifiedly the presence and agency 
 of invisible beings. Milton assures us that millions 
 of these are constantly walking the earth. We may 
 not reasonably doubt, when the physical world 
 abounds with innumerable races and genera of living 
 beings, that the invisible region is no less densely 
 peopled ; nor that we are all surrounded by spiritual 
 entities, bodied and unbodied, that are capable of 
 transfusing their thoughts, impulses and appetences 
 into us. We observe something like this in our men- 
 tal operations. What we denominate reasoning is the 
 conscious endeavor of the understanding to* trace out 
 facts, their relations and correspondences. Beyond 
 this region of the soul there is that of the intuitive 
 intellect, more occult and apart from this world. It 
 is not limited, like the other, to matters of experience, 
 but is manifestly in communication with beings and 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 225 
 
 intelligences that are outside of the acknowledged 
 realms of physical existence. Such intercourse is the 
 eternal world, of which this material universe is but 
 a colony. I am convinced that what is commonly 
 recognized as insight, intuition and inspiration, is this 
 faculty of supraconscious intelligence. It is a re- 
 membering, the reproducing and bringing into con- 
 sciousness of what we knew and possessed before we 
 became sojourners in the region of limit and change.* 
 
 It belongs to that sphere of being to< which we are 
 now in a manner oblivious and alien. There can 
 be no> mental activity without its aid, any more than 
 there can be muscular action without the exercise of 
 the will. . . . 
 
 Our existence in the material universe is the result 
 of causes which we are hardly sufficient to compre^- 
 hend. It may have been for the object of perfecting 
 our individuality, and so constituting an essential 
 means to establish our selfhood in a more complete 
 identity. We may not doubt that it is necessary to 
 us, and has its uses, which we may not safely forego. 
 We should also bear in mind that it is the occupying 
 of a certain sphere of being, rather than the mode of 
 dwelling in it. We are really in it before our birth, 
 or even our conception, and do not leave it by the 
 dissolving of the body. That we seem to forsake it 
 through this event is not enough ; the condition which 
 allied us to material nature must also* be exceeded. 
 Otherwise, like a weed which has been cut off by the 
 hoe in one place, we will be likely to issue forth again 
 in another. ... It may seem to be a matter of 
 
 *The compiler would like to see this thought worked out 
 with an explanation of the fact that women, far more than 
 men, possess the gifts of insight and intuition. 
 
226 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 wonderment to many that if we have our origin in 
 the eternal world, we appear, nevertheless, to have 
 no distinct or positive memory of that fact. Whether 
 we ever existed among men on earth, we believe 
 rather than know for certainty. This does not prove 
 anything adverse. It has been already remarked 
 that the soul, upon entering the realm of conditioned 
 existence, becomes as though asleep, unconscious of 
 the celestial world, but dreaming, so to speak, of 
 scenes in the material universe. . . . Although 
 the souls which have been prisoned in this world of 
 sense have ceased to know about the higher life, and 
 so are as though dead, yet this exile and death do not 
 constitute a total separation from the heavenly world. 
 They have some recollection of their former state of 
 bliss, and yearn for a higher and nobler form of life. 
 The interior spirit continues to live from above. It 
 is no parentless evolution of physical nature, but a 
 projection or outcome from the eternal region, Cor- 
 ruption is not an heir to incorruption, and that prin- 
 ciple of our being which rises in glory, a spiritual 
 essence, was first sown before it could experience any 
 evolution. It was always immortal, without refer- 
 ence to the sensuous nature. The spiritual essence, 
 the inward man that delights in the law of God, is 
 the fountain of our life, and confers upon the 
 corporeal structure all its significance. We are there- 
 fore immortal, imperishable and eternal, without be- 
 coming so. The supersensuaus world is not a fu- 
 ture state, in any essential sense of the term, but is 
 now present and about every one of us. Our life 
 in that sphere of being is by no means incompatible 
 with living here on the earth. It is not necessary 
 to lay the body aside in order to become free from 
 the contamination of material existence. The soul 
 may again turn toward its celestial source, contem- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 227 
 
 plate it, and be at one with it, and so become spiritual 
 and divine as partaking of Deity. 
 
 The life which we live as inhabitants of the eternal 
 world is in no sense a continuance of the life which 
 we live upon the earth. It is not a form or mode of 
 existence, but a quality of being. It has no part in 
 any action which is inspired by the consideration! of a 
 result. It consists solely of the moral essentials, 
 love, virtue and goodness. It knows no going and 
 coming as in a region of space; there are no words 
 for divisible conditions in the language of the gods. 
 We have no occasion to> search for any one in the 
 heavenly world. We are in and with those whom 
 we love, and are permeated by them through all our 
 being. We cognize rather than recognize them. 
 There is no space or limit to the human mind, and 
 hence our personality possesses indefinite extension 
 over the world of spirit. The gladness of thought, 
 the communion of love, the beatitude of service, the 
 ecstasy of worship, the contemplation of the divine, 
 make up the life there; as they are felt and known 
 here to be the highest of our employments. 
 
 Newark, N. J. 
 
 John Ferguson Weir, A. M., Sculptor, Director and 
 Professor of Painting and Design, Yale School 
 of Fine Arts, in "Human Destiny in the Light 
 of Revelation!' 
 
 "WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM" 
 I 
 
 Apart from the revelation of human destiny in 
 Jesus Christ, man's conception of his ultimate future 
 cannot rise above the earthly experience or its analo- 
 
228 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 gies. The knowledge of that which is "hid with 
 Christ in God" is revealed to the spiritual by the 
 spirit. In the light of Revelation that earthly life 
 of man of which Nature is the mould and Science the 
 interpreter, is discerned to be but a span on an end- 
 less path of progress which passes through the heav- 
 ens and mounts to- the unveiled presence of God, 
 where man is affirmed to be void of all imperfection 
 even when judged by a divine standard. 
 
 Discerning in Christ the overwhelming greatness 
 of human destiny, St. John exclaims, "Behold, what 
 manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, 
 that we should be called the sons of God." Incap- 
 able as the human mind is, in the earthly life, for 
 apprehending the full significance of the revelation, 
 the apostle adds, "It doth not yet appear what we 
 shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we 
 shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And 
 every man, that hath this hope in him purifieth him- 
 self, even as he is pure." So* great, indeed, is the 
 variance between this present stage of life and that 
 ultimate heavenly state of perfect man as revealed in 
 Jesus, that the mind of this world finds it difficult to 
 reconcile the two as constituting the beginning and 
 the ending of one continuous path of human progress. 
 
 II 
 
 It may be inferred, in the light of Revelation, that 
 human destiny will find its fulfillment in the form 
 of an, infinitely diversified "heavenly host" of per- 
 fected human souls, glorified by the indwelling pres- 
 ence of God. For as the forming experience has 
 been in the creation of each separate soul from its 
 initial earthly stage to that perfected heavenly con- 
 summation in "the kingdom of the Father" — as re- 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 229 
 
 vealed in Christ — so will its individuality be marked 
 in that celestial state as in the earthly life, revealing 
 the inexhaustible fullness of God's love and the infini- 
 tude of his creative power. The apostle Paul likens 
 this individuality of perfected human souls to the 
 distinctions in the heavenly bodies, even "as one star 
 differeth from another star in glory ;" and Jesus says 
 of the heavenly consummation, u Then shall the right- 
 eous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their 
 Father." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Not through speculative conjecture was this knowl- 
 edge of human destiny acquired by man, but by a 
 revelation of the truth in Jesus Christ, who said, "To 
 this end was I born, and for this cause came I into 
 the world; that I should bear witness unto the truth." 
 And St. John says, "The life was manifested, and we 
 have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you 
 that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was 
 manifested unto us. That which we have seen and 
 heard declare we unto you, that ye: also may have 
 fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with 
 the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And 
 these things we write unto you, that your joy may be 
 
 IV 
 
 The advanced thought of the time is now largely 
 occupied with questions concerning man's origin and 
 destiny, studied almost exclusively in the light of 
 Nature. In marked contrast with the acquisitions 
 of empirical science or of speculative philosophy 
 stands the revelation of human destiny in Jesus Christ, 
 
2 3 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 He who said, "These things have I spoken unto you, 
 that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be 
 full," implies therein that he is himself a manifesta- 
 tion of u the way and the truth and the life" in all that 
 concerns human destiny. Can it be doubted then 
 that his "good tidings," in their affirmative form, are 
 a means of implanting in the human heart, through 
 love and gratitude to God, a nobler motive and a 
 stronger impulse for hastening the divine consumma- 
 tion of human destiny than any merely repressive 
 means could effect through moral restraint alone? 
 St. Paul says, "All the promises of God in him are 
 yea" — that is, affirmations of truth — "and in him 
 Amen, unto the glory of God." Christ holds up 
 before the mind and heart of man that which appeals 
 to the nobler part of human nature, that which lifts 
 man above the earth and transfigures the meanest 
 things of the present, when he says, "Come, ye 
 blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the foundation of the world." 
 New Haven, Conn. 
 
 William T. Harris, A. M., Ph.D., LL.D., United 
 States Commissioner of Education, Conductor 
 Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 
 
 IMMORTALITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL* 
 
 I. Introduction. Our argument for immortality 
 will be based chiefly on psychology. The proofs on 
 which most men rely for their conviction that they 
 
 *Dr. Harris's Pamphlet — reprinted by Appleton & Co., 
 New York, and Triibner & Co., London, in 1885, from the 
 Journal of Speculative Philosophy — contains the following 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 231 
 
 will continue their individual existence after death 
 we therefore pass over. The proofs that we omit 
 from our discussion are: 
 
 a. The return to life of those who* have died — a 
 resurrection in the body — notably the example which 
 the Christian Church teaches as the basis of its faith 
 and as the symbol of the resurrection of the individ- 
 ual man. 
 
 b. The physical manifestation of individuality 
 after death by the exertion of power to control mat- 
 ter, or to materialize in temporary bodies as in cases 
 of reported modern and ancient spiritualism. 
 
 c. General belief in the existence of the soul after 
 death, and the probability that such general beliefs 
 of mankind are well founded. 
 
 d. General desire of man to live forever, and his 
 horror at annihilation; probability that a desire im- 
 parted to his nature has a reality correspondent to it. 
 
 e. The infinite perfectibility of the human mind ; 
 its full capacity never realized in this life; each new 
 growth in knowledge or insight, or power of will, or 
 in love for the race, being always a means of greater 
 growth in the same and other directions, contrary to 
 the course of nature, or to the divine character to 
 endow a being with capacities never to be developed. 
 
 divisions, only four of which could be used in the limited 
 space of this volume: I. Introduction. II. Immortality 
 of the Species. III. Agnosticism. IV. Conceivability of 
 the Infinite. V. Empirical Proofs of Immortality. VI. 
 Types of Individuality. VII. The Individuality of Plants 
 and Animals. VIII. Human Individuality. IX. Human 
 Individuality Immortal. X. What Faculties Survive Death? 
 XL Ethical Culture Presupposes Immortality. XII. A 
 Personal God Presupposed by Immortality. 
 
232 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 /. A special phase of proof that belongs to the 
 foregoing is, since Kant and Fichte, the favorite 
 ground for the philosophic doctrine of immortality. 
 The moral proof (or the "proof of the practical 
 reason") asserts that, according to Kant, "a holy will 
 can be realized only in the thinking of an infinite pro- 
 gress, which is possible only under the presupposition 
 of an infinitely continuing existence and personality 
 of the same rational being." .... 
 
 g. Besides these there is the proof from the stand- 
 point of Evolution. 
 
 IX. Human Individuality Immortal. Why will 
 one make individual immortality to begin with the 
 perception of universals and of self-identity rather 
 than with individual reaction in the plant, or in that 
 of self- feeling in the animal; or, still more, with that 
 of free self-activity in recollection? 
 
 Undoubtedly there is individuality wherever there 
 is reaction, but mere reaction is not sufficient to consti- 
 tute personal identity. The activity in reaction arises 
 on account of the activity of another being, and hence 
 is not entirely of itself in the case of the plant or the 
 nutritive form of life, or in that of the mere animal 
 or the feeling and locomotive being. Were such in- 
 dividuality to be imperishable it would be uncon- 
 scious imperishability and devoid of memory that 
 recognizes its own being in the present and in the 
 past. Mere recollection is not the recognition of the 
 being of the self. A self must be universal, and can 
 in no wise be a mere particular thing or act such as 
 can be recollected. The self is the principle of the 
 process of reaction against the environment and of 
 the activity of reproduction and synthesis. 
 
 The individual, therefore, is not only a self — a 
 universal — but also an entire sphere of particularity. 
 The self can generate by the reproductive activity all 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 233 
 
 that it has seen and heard, all that it has experienced 
 — reproducing it as often as it pleases and entirely 
 free from the presence of the objects perceived, and it 
 can generate from itself the ideas of the general 
 processes in which originated the special facts of sense 
 perception. Hence its particulars are also general. 
 Such a stage we call Memory, in the special and 
 higher sense of the word — not the memory that recol- 
 lects, but the memory that recalls by the aid of 
 universal ideas. These general ideas are mnemonic 
 aids — pigeon holes, as it were, in the mind — whereby 
 the soul conquers the endless multiplicity of details 
 in the world. It refers each to its species and saves 
 the species under a name — then is able to recall by 
 the name a vast number of special instances. 
 
 Language is the sign by which we can recognize 
 the arrival of the soul at this stage of development 
 into complete self-activity. Hence language is the 
 criterion of immortal individuality. In order to use 
 language, it must be able not only to act for itself, 
 but to act wholly upon itself. It must not only per- 
 ceive things by the senses, but accompany its perceiv- 
 ing by an inner perception of the act of perceiving 
 (and thus be its own environment). This percep- 
 tion of the act and process of perceiving is the recog- 
 nition of classes, species, and genera — the universal 
 processes underlying the existence of the particular. 
 
 Language in this sense involves conventional signs, 
 and is not an immediate expression of feeling like the 
 cries of animals. The immediate expression of feel- 
 ing (which is only a reaction) does not become lan- 
 guage, even when it accompanies recollection or the 
 free reproduction — nor until it accompanies memory 
 or the seeing of the particular in the general. When 
 it can be shown that a species of animals use con- 
 ventional signs in communication with each other, we 
 
234 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 shall be able to infer their immortality, because we 
 shall have evidence of their freedom from sense-per- 
 ception and environment sufficient to> create for them- 
 selves their own occasion for activity. They would 
 then, be shown to react not merely against their en- 
 vironment, but against their own, action — hence they 
 would involve both action and reaction, self and 
 environment. They would, in that case, have 
 selves, and their selves exist for themselves, and hence 
 they would have self-identity. Take away self-iden- 
 tity, and still there may be persistence of self-activity, 
 but it is only generic — that of the species and not of 
 the individual. The species lives, the individual dies 
 in such cases. 
 
 X. What Faculties Survive Death. Having 
 found the criterion of immortality, let us look at some 
 of the ideas and capacities which come with its en- 
 dowment. The ascent above sense-perception and 
 recollection indicates to us the subordinate place of 
 those faculties, and also their moribund character. 
 As Aristotle hinted, in his profound treatise on the 
 Soul, these lower faculties are not immortal in their 
 nature (although they will long outlast this earthly 
 life). 
 
 In thinking of such faculties in the lives of great 
 men of science — like Agassiz, Cuvier, Lyell, von 
 Humboldt, Darwin and Goethe — we see what this 
 means. It is the first and crudest stage of mental 
 culture that depends chiefly on sense-perception, and 
 recollection. After the general has been discovered, 
 the mind uses it more and more, and the information 
 of the senses becomes a smaller and smaller part of 
 the knowledge. Agassiz in a single scale saw the 
 whole fish — so that the scale was all that was re- 
 quired to suggest the whole. Lyell could see the 
 whole history of its origin in a pebble, Cuvier could 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 235 
 
 see the entire animal-skeleton in one of its bones. 
 The Memory , which holds types, processes, and uni- 
 versal, the condensed form of all human experience, 
 the total aggregate of all sense-perception of the 
 universe and all reflection on it — this constitutes the 
 chief faculty of the scientific man, and sense-percep- 
 tion and mere recollection play the most insignificant 
 part. 
 
 This points to the complete independence of the 
 soul as a far-off idea. When the soul can think the 
 creative thought, the theoretic vision of the world, 
 then it comes to perfect insight, for it sees the whole 
 in each part, and does not require any longer the 
 mechanical memory, because it has a higher form of 
 intellect that sees immediately in the individual thing 
 its history, just as Lyell or Agassiz saw the history 
 of a pebble or a fish, or Asa Gray sees all botany in a 
 single plant. Mechanical memory is thus taken up 
 into a higher "f acuity,' ' and, its function being ab- 
 sorbed, it gradually perishes. But it never perishes 
 until its function is provided for in a more complete 
 manner. 
 
 XI. Ethical Culture Presupposes Immortality. 
 Man is born an animal, but must become a spiritual 
 being. He is limited to the present moment and to 
 the present place, but he must conquer all places and 
 all times. Man, therefore, has an ideal of culture 
 which it is his destiny or vocation to achieve. 
 
 He must lift himself above his mere particular 
 existence toward universal existence. All peoples, no 
 matter how degraded, recognize this duty. The 
 South Sea Islander commences with his infant child 
 and teaches him habits that conform to> that phase 
 of civilization — an ethical code fitting him to live in 
 that community — and, above all, the mother-tongue, 
 so that he may receive the results of the perceptions 
 
236 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 and reflections of his fellow-beings and communicate 
 his own to them. The experience of the tribe, a slow 
 accretion through years and ages, shall be preserved 
 and communicated to each new-born child, vicari- 
 ously saving him from endless labor and suffering. 
 Through culture the individual shall acquire the 
 experience of the species — shall live the. life of the 
 race, and be lifted above himself. Such a process as 
 culture thus puts man above the accident of time and 
 place in so far as the tribe or race has accomplished 
 this. 
 
 Whatever lifts man above immediate existence, the 
 wants and impulses of the present moment, and gives 
 him self-control, is called ethical. The ethical 
 grounds itself therefore, in man's existence in the 
 species and in the possibility of the realization of the 
 species in the individual. Hence, too, the ethical 
 points toward immortality as its presupposition. 
 Death comes through the inadequacy of the indi- 
 vidual organism to adjust itself to the environment; 
 the conditions are too general, and the individual gets 
 lost in the changes that come to it. Were the indi- 
 vidual capable of adapting himself to all changes, 
 there could be no death; the individual would be 
 perfectly universal. This process of culture that 
 distinguishes man from all other animals points to- 
 ward the formation of an immortal individual distinct 
 from the body within which it dwells — an individual 
 who has the capacity to realize within himself the 
 entire species. 
 
 Immortality thus complements the ethical idea. 
 In an infinite universe the process of realizing the 
 experience of all beings by each being must itself be 
 of infinite duration. The doctrine of immortality, 
 therefore, places man's life under the form of eternity 
 and ennobles mortal life to its highest potency. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 237 
 
 Since ethics rest on the idea of a social whole as 
 the totality of man, and on the idea of an immortal 
 life as the condition of realizing in each man the 
 life of the whole, it lays great stress on the attitude 
 of renunciation on the part of the individual. The 
 special man must deny himself, sacrifice the present 
 moment in order to attain the higher form of eternity. 
 To act indifferently toward the present moment is to 
 "act disinterestedly," as it is called. It is the prefer- 
 ence of reflected good for immediate good — my 
 good reflected from all humanity, my good after their 
 good and through their good, and not my good be- 
 fore their good and instead of their good. 
 
 This doctrine of disinterestedness has been per- 
 verted into' a doctrine of annihilation of all interest 
 by a school of ascetic moralists in our times — the 
 school of the Positivists. According to them, it were 
 a higher form of disinterestedness to forswear all in- 
 terest, and to waive all return of good upon ourselves 
 from others. In fact, the ne plus ultra of this dis- 
 interestedness is the renunciation, not only of mortal 
 life, but of immortal life — the renunciation of self- 
 hood itself. 
 
 Such supreme renunciation is the irony of renuncia- 
 tion. It would renounce not only the pleasures of 
 the flesh, but the blessedness of virtue and sainthood. 
 It would renounce eternity as well as the present 
 moment. The dialectic of such a position would 
 force it into the next extreme of pure wickedness. 
 For, see, is it not more disinterested to renounce eter- 
 nal blessedness than the mere pleasure of the present 
 moment? The more renunciation, the more ethical. 
 Hence the denizens of the Inferno — those plunged 
 into* all manner of mortal sins — are more virtuous 
 than the saints in paradise. For the sinners — do 
 they not renounce blessedness — the form of eternity 
 
238 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 — the infinite happiness, and in their self-denial take 
 up with mere temporal pleasures that are sure to leave 
 stings of pain ? What nobleness to prefer hell with 
 its darkness and fire and ice to paradise with its seren- 
 ity and light and love! Is it not a step in advance 
 even over such ethical culture as rejects immortality 
 from disinterestedness to plunge into positive pain, 
 and thereby exhibit one's abstract freedom from all 
 lures to* happiness ? 
 
 But such u ethical culture" is not true morality. 
 Disinterestedness is only a relative matter in it — it 
 is incidental, and not the essential element in virtue. 
 It is of no use whatever except to eliminate the im- 
 mediateness from life. The individual should be- 
 come the species, and, instead of receiving good 
 directly, should receive it as reflected from his fellow- 
 men. Not to receive it as reflected from his fellow- 
 men would paralyze the circulation which is necessary 
 to the realization of the species, and man's ideal 
 would vartish utterly. The principle of altruism 
 implies receiving as well as giving. No giving can 
 remain where no receiving is. Hence ethics vanish 
 altogether with the paralysis of the return of the 
 good upon the individual from the whole of society. 
 The individual is cut off from the species by absolute 
 renunciation, and cannot ascend into it by submitting 
 mediated good for immediate, as all codes of morals 
 demand. Humanity lapses into bestiality. Civili- 
 zation is impossible without this ideal of the race as 
 the goal of the individual. It is the object of lan- 
 guage, literature, science, religion, and all human in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 Thus, too, immortality is presupposed by all the 
 instrumentalities of civilization. The completion of 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 239 
 
 spiritual life in the communion of all souls is the final 
 cause or purpose of immortal life. 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Paul Cams, Ph.D., Editor of The Open Court and 
 The Monist, in 'Whence and Whither!' 
 
 THE COMMUNISM OF SOUL-LIFE 
 
 . . . There is no individual in the absolute 
 sense. We are not separate beings, distinct and or- 
 iginal : we are parts of a greater whole, and in this 
 greater whole our destiny, our antecedents as well as 
 our future, is encompassed. Only he to whom by a 
 habit of thought the old view of individuality has 
 been endeared can see harm in the breakdown of the 
 limits that separate us from the life of others. The 
 truth is, that when we learn to recognize our spiritual 
 identity with the soul-life outside the boundary of our 
 individual existence, our soul broadens and we feel 
 a thrill of joy at the apprehension that we are in- 
 finitely greater than we thought. He who< shrinks in 
 dismay from this broader conception of the soul may- 
 be sure that he has not as yet understood the signifi- 
 cance of its truth. 
 
 The nature of all soul-life, intellectual as well as 
 emotional, is founded upon communism. No growth 
 of ideas for any length of time is possible without 
 communication. It is the exchange of thought and 
 mutual criticism that produces intellectual progress. 
 And it is the warmth of a sympathetic heart which 
 kindles similar feelings in others. With every sent- 
 ence that you speak to others, a part of your soul is 
 transferred to them. And in their souls your words 
 may fall like seeds. Some may fall by the wayside, 
 
2 4 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 where the fowls come and devour them up. Others 
 may fall upon a rock where they have not much earth. 
 Some may fall upon thorns which will choke them. 
 Yet some of them will fall upon good ground: and 
 the words will take root and grow and bring forth 
 fruit, some a hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some 
 thirty-fold. 
 
 In delineating the constitution of man's soul,* 
 we have answered the question : Whence do we come ? 
 We are the continuation of the soul-life under whose 
 parentage and general care we have taken our start, 
 and represent the sum total of the endeavors of our 
 ancestry since times immemorial, when at the dawn 
 
 *See the book, "Whence and Whither," published by The 
 Open Court Co. Dr. Carus, who is not a believer in per- 
 sonal immortality, says of his conception: "It may not be 
 satisfactory to those who believe they are in need of a soul- 
 entity, who think that if their soul does not consist of a sub- 
 stance they can have no soul at all and their immortality 
 would be a flimsy makeshift: but they cannot say that it is 
 untrue. They cannot deny that our soul is actually formed 
 first by the inheritance of dispositions and then through 
 education under the formative influence of other souls. 
 Nor can it be gainsaid that in our recollections and remin- 
 iscences the souls of the dead remain living presences exercis- 
 ing a powerful influence upon our lives. In this sense they 
 become angels, i. e., spiritual guides, whose inspirations have 
 proved to be of the greatest importance. The dead have 
 finished their career: their course is run, and all their 
 troubles are over. Theirs is a condition of Paradisian bliss 
 and peace. Yet their usefulness is not gone: they con- 
 tinue to surround us and to comfort us, and we deem the 
 sentiment, as expressed in many church hymns and poems, 
 full of assurance of an immortality, not only legitimate but 
 even perfectly tenable from our own radical standpoint." 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 241 
 
 of creation the first speck of living matter began its 
 venturesome career. 
 
 Whither do we fare? Apparently our body is dis- 
 solved at death and disintegrated into' its elements. 
 Feeling becomes extinct in it, thought discontinues, 
 and all activity ceases. Is not, then, our life spent 
 for nothing ? For, if we are gone and nothing is left 
 of our bodily organization what is the use whether 
 we were good or bad, whether we were a genius or a 
 fool, whether our existence was idled away in empty 
 pleasure or filled with great and noble deeds ? Is it 
 not quite indifferent whether or not latter generations 
 praise or blame us, whether we become a blessing to 
 posterity or a curse? 
 
 But we have learned to distinguish between our 
 material make-up and its form, between body and 
 spirit, between the ego and the soul. The explana- 
 tion of the nature of our soul and its Whence suggests 
 the answer to the question, Whither? so anxiously 
 asked by millions of quivering lips. The vanity fair 
 of life which contributes so much to produce the ego- 
 illusion becomes most apparent in death, but when 
 the vessel is broken, its contents are not spilled to 
 evaporate into hazy clouds. In order to know what 
 shall become of us, we must ask ourselves, What 
 has become of our ancestors? Their bodies have 
 crumbled into dust and nothing is left of them, ex- 
 cept those life-forms which have been transmitted to 
 later generations and have finally built up our own 
 soul. Yet these life-forms are their souls. All that 
 which proved good is treasured up and preserved in 
 the continued life of the race. Their bodies are 
 gone, but their souls remain. . . . Our corpor- 
 eal individuality is dissolved in death, but not our 
 personality. Our existence after death, far from be- 
 ing a dissolution, into the All, consists in this that we 
 
242 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 are gathered to our fathers, and in this state all our 
 personal features are preserved. As sure as the law 
 of cause and effect is true, so* sure is the continuance of 
 soul-life even after the death of the individual ac- 
 cording to the law of the preservation of form. It is 
 not non-existence but a condition of intense useful- 
 ness, a higher kind of life, the grandeur of which 
 suggested to George Eliot this noble prayer: 
 
 "O may I join the choir invisible 
 
 Of those immortal dead who live again 
 
 In minds made better by their presence: live 
 
 In pulses stirr'd to generosity. 
 
 In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
 
 For miserable aims that end with self, 
 
 In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 
 
 And with their mild persistence urge man's search 
 
 To vaster issues. 
 
 "This is life to come, 
 Which martyr'd men have made more glorious 
 For us who strive to follow. ,, 
 
 This view of immortality is as obvious as it is un- 
 deniable even by the bigoted unbeliever and the most 
 rabid sceptic. The sole difficulty which the average 
 man encounters is his lack of appreciation of the im- 
 portance of form. Forms are not non-entities, not 
 shadows, or phantasms; forms are real. Our per- 
 sonality becomes possible through a continuance of 
 our life- forms; and these life-forms are preserved 
 beyond death. Our immortality, accordingly, is as 
 real as is our identity in the changes of life. The 
 latter is no more nor less absolute than the former, 
 and as the former is generally satisfactory to man- 
 kind, why should we find fault with the former ? He 
 who comprehends the reality of form will certainly 
 know that it is all we iriay expect, and we cannot ask 
 for anything better. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 243 
 
 The truth that every personality is distinctly defi- 
 nite in its character and will remain distinctly itself 
 after death, does not imply that it is a separate entity 
 which might have originated or could exist in seclu- 
 sion. There is no isolation in the domain of spirit, 
 and the life of the soul is rooted in communism. 
 
 Every spiritual giving is a gaining; it is a taking 
 possession of other peoples' minds. It is an expan- 
 sion, a transplantation of our thoughts, a psychic 
 growth beyond the narrow limits of our individual 
 existence into other souls; it is a rebuilding, a con- 
 struction of our own souls or of parts of our own 
 souls, in other souls. It is a transference of mind. 
 Every conversation is an exchange of souls. Those 
 whose souls are u flat, stale and unprofitable," cannot 
 be expected to overflow with deep thought. But 
 those who are rich in spiritual treasures will not, as 
 misers, keep them for themselves. For out of the 
 abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, and 
 spiritual treasures are not wasted when imparted; 
 they are not lost, but put out on usury, and will multi- 
 ply and thus bring great reward, although the reward 
 be not a material profit to ourselves. 
 
 The communism of soul-life is not limited to the 
 present generation; it extends to the past as well as 
 to the future. The present generation of humanity 
 is like the present generation of live corals who have 
 grown from, and rest upon, the work of former 
 generations. The ancestors of the corals now on the 
 surface lived in the shallow places of the ocean, 
 where the sun made the waters warm and the surf 
 afforded them sufficient food; and when in the lapse 
 of time through terrestrial changes the bottom on 
 which they had settled, sank slowly deeper and deeper, 
 they built higher and higher, and in this way they 
 managed to keep near the surface. The branches 
 
244 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 in the cold, deep waters are now dead; yet they 
 furnish a solid basis to the coral life above, where the 
 sun shines and the currents of the surf pass to and 
 fro. 
 
 If the corals could think and speak, I wonder 
 whether the living generation on the surface would 
 not rail at the corals in the cold deep below! At 
 least the present human generation very often proves 
 ungrateful to its predecessors. Those who feel the 
 necessity of progress, who wish humanity to remain 
 uppermost and to rise higher, are apt to* overlook the 
 merits of their ancestors ; they observe that the ideas 
 of former generations are antiquated and do no 
 longer fit into the present time. Thus they brand the 
 old views as superstitions and forget that the views 
 of the present generation have developed from the 
 old, and that they stand upon their ancestors' work. 
 It would seem as if the dead corals in the cold, dreary 
 deep must have been always unfit for life; yet there 
 was a time when their coral homes thrilled with life; 
 and so there was a time when the superstitions of to- 
 day were true science and true religion although they 
 are now dreary and cold. Where is the coral life of 
 the past? Has it disappeared? No, it continues, 
 and its continuation is the coral life; of to-day. So 
 the humanity of former generations has not gone. 
 The single corals are connected among themselves 
 through the canals in the branches from which they 
 grow. No one of them can prosper without supply- 
 ing its neighbors with the superabundance of its pros- 
 perity. The main difference is that the communism 
 of soul-life is much closer and more intimate than 
 that of the coral plant, and the thinker who freely 
 gives away his spiritual treasures, unlike the giver 
 of material gifts, does not lose ; he is rather the gainer 
 for spiritual possessions grow in importance the 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 245 
 
 more profusely they are imparted. The commoner 
 they are, the more powerful they become. 
 
 The sacrament of the Lord's Supper symbolizes a 
 spiritual fact — the holy communion of mankind. 
 But remember that the eating of the bread and the 
 drinking of the wine are allegorical; the actual com- 
 munion consists in an exchange of souk which is done 
 through the vehicle of speech, the word, the logos. 
 
 Our spiritual life is through others, with others, 
 and in others. The more we are conscious of the 
 communism of soul-life*, the more our heart expands 
 beyond the narrow limits of our selfhood, the more 
 conscious shall we become of our immortality. Says 
 Schiller in one of his Xenions : 
 
 "Art thou afraid, friend, of death and thou longest for life 
 
 everlasting? 
 Live as a part of the whole; when thou art gone it remains." 
 
PART III 
 POEMS 
 
Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth, in Zioris Herald. 
 O SOUL OF MINE 
 
 (Revelations n. 17.) 
 
 (The White Stone gave to victors the freedom of 
 the city. It was also the stone of acquittal t and on 
 it was written a new name.) 
 
 I 
 
 O Soul of mine, I hear a deep Voice speaking, 
 As cares increasing on thy swift steps press, 
 What says the Voice? — "The only think worth seek- 
 ing 
 
 Is righteousness. 
 
 II 
 
 "In righteousness all things may'st thou inherit, 
 Her past awaits the years eterne to bless, 
 Life loses all if it gain not the merit 
 Of righteousness. 
 
 Ill 
 
 O Soul of mine, the sun's brief hours are flying, 
 And dust is all these mortal hands possess ; 
 Where rise the fountains of the life undying? — 
 In righteousness. 
 
 (249) 
 
2 5 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 IV 
 
 "Soul, in thyself are hidden compensations 
 For disappointment, sorrow and distress; 
 Not wealth, but sacrifice, attains the stations 
 To righteousness." 
 
 O Soul of mine, the cross is shining o'er thee, 
 Its glory lights each step of thy duress, 
 All thy ideals may change to life before thee 
 Through righteousness. 
 
 VI 
 
 O Soul of mine, thou may'st be poor and cotless, 
 Lone disappointment may thy hopes depress: 
 The heavens are thine, if thou in Christ be spotless 
 In righteousness. 
 
 VII 
 
 Pleasure ? We part since thou art lost in winning. 
 Wealth? Thou dost make the soul's- true value less. 
 Fame? What are thou but night's tone firefly's 
 spinning, 
 
 To righteousness? 
 
 VIII 
 
 "There is a city of the spheres immortal, 
 That victors over self and sin possess, 
 And the White Stone that opes its irised portal 
 Is righteousness." 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 251 
 IX 
 
 O Sacrifice, for thine own work receive me, 
 With gains of losses let me others bless, 
 Star of the Cross, I follow and believe thee, 
 My righteousness. 
 
 x 
 
 Whither? I know not — into life eternal, 
 My Guide I know, his feet I after press, 
 Within the soul are life and light supernal — 
 In righteousness ! 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Mr. Henry Abbey, in "Complete Poems," Fourth 
 Enlarged Edition. 
 
 FAITH'S VISTA 
 
 When from the vaulted wonder of the sky 
 The curtain of the light is drawn aside, 
 And I behold the stars in all their wide 
 Significance and glorious mystery, 
 Assured that those more distant orbs are suns 
 Round which innumerable worlds revolVe, — 
 My faith grows strong, my day-born doubts dissolve, 
 And death, that dread annulment which life shuns, 
 Or fain would shun, becomes to life the way, 
 The thoroughfare to greater worlds on high, 
 The bridge from star to star. Seek how we may, 
 There is no other road across the sky; 
 And, looking up, I hear star-voices say : 
 "You could not reach us if you did not die." 
 Kingston, N. Y. 
 
252 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Charles F. Richardson, A. M., Ph.D., Professor of 
 English, Dartmouth College, in "The End of 
 the Beginning." 
 
 AFTER DEATH 
 
 When I forthfare beyond this narrow earth, 
 
 With all its metes and bounds of now and here, 
 And brooding clouds of ignorance and fear 
 
 That overhung me on my day of birth, 
 
 Where through the jocund sun's perennial mirth 
 Has shown more inly bright each coming year, 
 With some new glory of that outer sphere 
 
 Where length and breadth and light are little worth, 
 
 Then shall I find that even here below 
 We guessed the secret of eternity, 
 And learned in years the yearless mystery; 
 
 For in our earliest world we came to know 
 The master-lesson and the riddle's key : 
 Unending love unending growth shall be. 
 Hanover, N. H. 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, in "Songs of the 
 Silent World."* 
 
 AFTERWARD 
 
 There is no vacant chair. The loving meet — 
 A group unbroken — smitten, who 1 knows how ? 
 
 One sitteth silent only, in his usual seat; 
 
 We gave him once that freedom. Why not now ? 
 
 *For an exhaustive discussion by Mrs. Ward of the prin- 
 ciple that man is born to fight for existence, here and in the 
 life eternal, see "A Struggle for Immortality," Houghton, 
 Mifflin and Co., Publishers, 1889. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 253 
 
 Perhaps he is too weary, and needs rest ; 
 
 He needed it too often, nor could we 
 Bestow. God gave it, knowing how to do so best. 
 
 Which of us would disturb him? Let him be. 
 
 There is no vacant chair. If he will take 
 The mood to listen mutely, be it done. 
 
 By his least mood we crossed, for which the heart 
 must ache, 
 Plead not nor question ! Let him have this one. 
 
 Death is a mood of life. It is no whim 
 
 By which life's Giver mocks a broken heart. 
 
 Death is life's reticence. Still audible to Him, 
 The hushed voice, happy, speaketh on, apart. 
 
 There is no vacant chair. To love is still 
 To have. Nearer to memory than to eye, 
 
 And dearer yet to anguish than to comfort, will 
 We hold him by our love, that cannot die. 
 
 For while it doth not, thus he cannot. Try ! 
 
 Who can put out the motion or the smile ? 
 The old ways of being noble all with him laid by? 
 
 Because we love, he is. Then trust awhile. 
 
 Newton Centre, Mass. 
 
 Miss Grace Denio Litchfield, in "Mimosa Leaves." 
 
 TO THE CICADA SEPTEMDECIM 
 
 Buried at moment of thy birth 
 Beneath the earth; 
 Hid thy life long afar 
 From glimpse of nearest star; 
 
254 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Creeping in darkness while rich seasons roll 
 Year following year, above thy stunted soul ; 
 Knowing but what the dead know in the tomb 
 
 Of silence and of gloom. 
 Dead, thou too, in thy present and thy past, — 
 What call doth reach thy deafened ear at last? 
 What instinct bids thee yearn toward the light, — 
 
 Thou, who has known but night? 
 What dream dawns in thee, beautiful and bold, 
 Of sylvan flight in noons of shimmering gold, 
 Where trembling trees their fluted leaves unfold? 
 How should such radiant dream be thine? 
 Or how canst thou divine 
 The counting of the years? 
 For when their meted tale is told, 
 Lo, summoned straightway from the mould 
 By will none other hears, — 
 Lo, born anew, 
 The dream thou couldst not dream is true ! 
 Thy sluggish spirit wakes, spreads wings away, 
 And knows the day. 
 
 So, when God's time is done, may mystic call 
 
 On my dull senses fall. 
 So may I, groping upward through life's night, 
 Go forth, new-winged, to< an undreamed-of light ! 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Mr. C. H. Miller, "Joaquin Miller/' in "Songs of 
 the Sierras" 
 
 EVEN SO 
 
 God knows that, at the best, life brings 
 The soul's share so exceeding small 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 255 
 
 That many mighty souls grow weak 
 And weary for some better things, 
 And hungered even unto death. 
 Laugh loud, be glad with ready breath, 
 For after all are joy and grief 
 Not merely matters of belief ? 
 And what is certain, after all, 
 But death, delightful, patient death? 
 
 cool and perfect peaceful sleep, 
 Without one tossing hand, or deep 
 Sad sigh and catching in of breath ! 
 
 Be satisfied. The price of breath 
 Is paid in toil. But knowledge is 
 Bought only with a weary care, 
 And wisdom means a world of pain. 
 Well, we have suffered, will again, 
 And we can work and wait and bear, 
 Strong in the certainty of bliss. 
 Death is delightful: after death 
 Breaks in the dawn of perfect day. 
 Let question he who will: the may 
 Throws fragrance far beyond the wall. 
 
 1 pass no word with such : 'tis fit 
 To pity such ; therefore I say 
 
 Be wise and make the best of it; 
 Content and strong against the fall. 
 
 Death is delightful. Death is dawn, 
 The waking from a weary night 
 Of fevers unto truth and light. 
 Fame is not much, love is not much, 
 Yet what else is there worth the touch 
 Of lifted hands with dagger drawn? 
 So surely life is little worth : 
 Therefore I say, Look up; therefore 
 
256 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 I say, One little star has more 
 Bright gold than all the earth of earth. 
 Yet we must labor, plant to reap — 
 Life knows no folding up of hands — 
 Must plough the soul, as ploughing lands, 
 In furrows fashioned strong and deep. 
 Life has its lesson. Let us learn 
 The hard long lesson from the birth, 
 And be content; stand breast to breast, 
 And bear and battle till the rest. 
 
 The Heights, Dimond, Cal. 
 
 Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, in "At the Wind's 
 Will" 
 
 MY FATHER'S HOUSE 
 
 When shall I join the blessed company 
 Of those this barren world to me denies? 
 When shall I wake to the new day's surprise, 
 
 Beyond the murmur of death's moaning sea, 
 
 In that glad home where my best loved ones be; 
 And know that I have found my Paradise, 
 Finding again the love that never dies, 
 
 The heart's dear welcome, biding there for me? 
 
 I wait alone upon life's wind-swept beach 1 — 
 
 The waves are high — the sea is wild and wide — 
 Yet Death, bold pilot, all their wrath shall dare, 
 
 And guide me to the shore I fain would reach : 
 Even now I hear the swift, incoming tide, 
 Whose slow, eternal ebb my bark shall bear. 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 257 
 
 Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller, A. M., in "For the 
 Beloved." 
 
 AFTER THE FEAST 
 
 The stars shine faintly through the gloom; 
 
 The guests are gone — the fires burn low — 
 I sit within the echoing room 
 
 To greet mine own before I go>, 
 Mine own for whom beside the board 
 
 To-day no empty chair was set, 
 For whom the silent pledge was poured 
 
 While tears the trembling eyelids wet. 
 
 Beloved faces, faintly set 
 
 In halos of my tenderest thought — 
 Sweet eyes whose heavenly radiance yet 
 
 With yearning human love is fraught — 
 Soft lips whose kisses, cool and slow, 
 
 Drop like a balm on earthly pain — 
 Dear hands whose every touch I know, 
 
 Yet may not hope to clasp again — 
 
 • 
 I know not to what wondrous height 
 
 In that wide heaven their thought has grown, 
 Or what new fountains of delight, 
 
 Untasted here their lips have known; 
 But since through changing years I keep 
 
 Their precious memory bright and fair, 
 I cannot deem that love can sleep, 
 
 Or cease its tender vigils there. 
 
 O unforgetting souls that swell 
 The bright, exultant hosts above, 
 
 Where face to face with Him ye dwell, 
 Whose endless years are endless love, 
 
258 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Tonight by some celestial air 
 The cloudy curtain wide is blown, 
 Guests of my heart, but grown more fair, 
 I see you, know you, claim my own ! 
 Evans ton, Ills. 
 
 Richard Watson Gilder, A. M., LL.D., L. H. D., 
 
 Editor of the Century, in u Five Books of Song." 
 
 "CALL ME NOT DEAD" 
 
 Call me not dead when I, indeed, have gone 
 
 Into the company of the ever-living 
 
 High and most glorious poets ! Let thanksgiving 
 Rather be made. Say : "He at last hath won 
 Rest and release, converse supreme and wise, 
 
 Music and song and light of immortal faces ; 
 
 Today, perhaps, wandering in starry places, 
 He hath met Keats l and known hiim by his eyes. 
 To-morrow (who can say?) Shakespeare may pass, 
 
 And our lost friend just catch one syllable 
 
 Of that three-centuried wit that kept so well ; 
 Or Milton: or Dante, looking on the grass 
 
 Thinking of Beatrice, and listening still 
 
 To chanted hymns that sound from the heavenly 
 hill." 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich, A. M., L. H. D., in i( Later 
 Lyrics" 
 
 "I VEX ME NOT WITH BROODING ON THE 
 YEARS" 
 
 I vex me not with brooding on the years 
 
 That were ere I drew breath ; why should I then 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 259 
 
 Distrust the darkness that may fall again 
 When life is done? Perchance in other spheres — 
 Dead planets — I once tasted mortal tears, 
 And walked as now among a throng of men, 
 Pondering things that lay beyond my ken, 
 Questioning death, and solacing my fears. 
 Ofttimes indeed strange sense have I of this, 
 Vague memories that hold me with a spell, 
 Touches of unseen lips upon my brow, 
 Breathing some incommunicable bliss ! 
 In years foregone, O Soul, was all not well ? 
 Still lovelier life awaits thee. Fear not thou ! 
 Saranac Lake, N. Y. 
 
 Sara J. Lippincott, "Grace Greenwood" in The In- 
 dependent. 
 
 TWO CHRISTMAS TIMES 
 
 There is no failure in God's sacred days, 
 Nor halt nor hurry in their march sublime ; 
 
 Ours are the purposeless, uncertain ways, 
 
 And ours the woful change from time to time. 
 
 Once, in the years when earth and life seemed new, 
 And every season in fresh charms arrayed — 
 
 These were the Christmas scenes my fancy drew, 
 In cheery light and soft poetic shade. 
 
 I 
 
 Now is the season when the town's dull street 
 Grows riotous with mirth, and song and light, 
 
 x\nd joyous greetings, and child-laughter sweet, 
 And merry bells, that mock the frosty night. 
 
2 6o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Now is the season when, on lonely ways, 
 
 The crowded coach toils through the drifting 
 snows ; 
 
 When, heavenly welcome to the traveler's gaze, 
 The dear home-firelight through his window glows. 
 
 Now is the season when, by sedgy lakes, 
 
 The sportsman's shot rings sharpest on the ear; 
 
 When stars blink fitful through the falling flakes, 
 And dim, dumb skies hang over woodlands drear. 
 
 Now, all bereft, the trees, whose whispering leaves 
 
 So oft to playful dalliance did invite 
 The wandering winds of balmy summer eves, 
 
 Toss their bare arms, and moan through all the 
 night. 
 
 The streams whose silver laughter filled the dell, 
 Whose murmurous ripple ran through woods of 
 June, 
 
 Now, frost enthralled, bound 'neath an icy spell, 
 Glide slow and silent, glittering to the moon. 
 
 But patient Earth robbed of the light and glow 
 Of sun and bloom, — her song all taken wing, — 
 
 Close-folded in her shroud-like robe of snow, 
 
 Waits for the call and kindling breath of Spring. 
 
 So, when chill sorrow blights life's summer bloom, 
 Brings dreary silence for joy's birdlike strain, 
 
 Let us lie still, beneath the storm, the gloom, 
 And wait till God shall breathe on us again. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 261 
 II 
 
 Now life and I are growing sad and old; 
 
 I watch the night fall of the year, and see 
 No old-home firelight beating back the cold, 
 
 No old-home faces looking out for me. 
 
 Now, Christmas chimes seem like to hurried knells, 
 And mind me of white mounds, in churchyard lone ; 
 
 And Christmas greetings mind of last farewells, 
 And hands that nevermore may clasp mine own. 
 
 I am not patient of Life's wintertime, 
 
 Dream not of flowers hid 'neath its robe of white; 
 I passionately mourn its golden prime, 
 
 The loves and hopes, frost-touched, in Sorrow's 
 night. 
 
 I see my path slant downward, toward 
 
 A sullen river, icy at the brim, 
 And know my soul must cross that awful ford 
 
 All, all alone, to regions strange and dim ! 
 
 A voice melts softly through the misty air ! 
 
 "Fear not I" it says. "Beyond the flood thou'lt see 
 The old dear home-light in a mansion fair, 
 
 Within the 'Father's House' — it shines for thee ! 
 
 Near the white portals, waiting, even now, 
 Thine own, thy very own, beloveds stand; 
 
 God's light immortal resting on each brow, 
 
 But Earth's dear love in welcoming voice an'! 
 hand." 
 
 New Rochelle, N. Y. 
 
262 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Mr. Edwin Markham in "The Man With the Hoe 
 and Other Poems," and "Lincoln and Other 
 Poems" 
 
 ("From the Man With the Hoe") 
 
 ONE LIFE, ONE LAW 
 
 What do we know — what need we know 
 Of the great world to which we go? 
 We peer into the tomb, and hark : 
 Its walls are dim, its doors are dark. 
 
 Be still, O mourning heart, nor seek 
 To make the tongueless silence speak; 
 Be still, be strong, nor wish to find 
 Their way who leave the world behind— 
 Voices and forms forever gone 
 Into the darkness of the dawn. 
 
 What is their wisdom, clear and deep?— 
 
 That as men sow they surely reap, — 
 
 That every thought, that every deed, 
 
 Is sown into the soul for seed. 
 
 They have no< word we do not know, — 
 
 Nor yet the cherubim aglow 
 
 With God : we know that virtue saves, — 
 
 They know no more beyond the graves. 
 
 (From "Lincoln and Other Poems") 
 
 A BARGAIN 
 
 Scoffer, you cry, "Where is your 'other world,' 
 Your fabled heaven in far eternities?" 
 
 Well said, but first, before your lip is curled, 
 Tell ('tis a little thing) where this world is ! 
 West New Brighton, S. I. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 263 
 
 Mr. Edward Robeson Taylor, Dean Hastings Col- 
 lege of Law, in "Into the Light." 
 
 INTO THE LIGHT 
 
 It cannot matter, for we are so small 
 
 A part of the immeasurable All. 
 
 So does thy demon whisper in thine ear 
 
 When pleasures lure thee as when shadows fall. 
 
 XI 
 
 But know that every eon which has gone 
 Before thee since life's earliest breath was drawn 
 Has helped compound thee into what thou art — 
 A deathless spirit moving on, and on. 
 
 XII 
 
 \ 
 
 And that the tiniest creature's slenderest strain 
 In loneliest wilderness is not in vain, 
 But makes inseparable part of all 
 Which fills Divinity's unending reign. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Couldst thou but only feel, without surcease, 
 Though woes and dangers round thee still increase, 
 Thyself as part of the eternal scheme, 
 Thy soul might anchor in the port of Peace — 
 
264 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 XV 
 
 The eternal scheme whose order as divine 
 Thou mayst not question, with its blazing sign 
 Above and round thee, and its rhythmic note 
 Forever ringing in that heart of thine. 
 
 XLV 
 
 Things, forces, change and change, but never die ; 
 Infinitude is writ on earth and sky ; 
 And if it be no atom lives in vain, 
 How can thy spirit ever clod-like lie? 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 Silas Weir Mitchell, M. D., LL.D., in "Collected 
 Poems of S. Weir Mitchell." 
 
 OF ONE WHO SEEMED TO HAVE FAILED 
 
 Death's but one more to-morrow. Thou art gray 
 
 With many a death of many a yesterday. 
 
 O yearning heart that lacked the athlete's force 
 
 And, stumbling, fell upon the beaten course, 
 
 And looked, and saw with ever glazing eyes 
 
 Some lower soul that seemed to win the prize ! 
 
 Lo, Death, the just, who comes to all alike, 
 
 Life's sorry scales of right anew shall strike. 
 
 Forth, through the night, on unknown shores to win 
 
 The peace of God unstirred by sense of sin ! 
 
 There love without desire shall, like a mist 
 
 At evening precious to the drooping flower, 
 
 Possess thy soul in ownership, and kissed 
 
 By viewless lips, whose touch shall be a dower 
 

 SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 265 
 
 Of genius and of winged serenity, 
 
 Thou shalt abide in realms of poesy. 
 
 There soul hath touch of soul, and there the great 
 
 Cast wide to welcome thee joy's golden gate. 
 
 Freeborn to untold thoughts that age on age 
 
 Caressed sweet singers in their sacred sleep, 
 
 Thy soul shall enter on its heritage 
 
 Of God's unuttered wisdom. Tho>u shalt sweep 
 
 With hand assured the ringing lyre of life, 
 
 Till the fierce anguish of its bitter strife, 
 
 Its pain, death, discord, sorrow, and despair, 
 
 Break into rhythmic music. Thou shalt share 
 
 The prophet-joy that kept forever glad 
 
 God's poet-souls when all a world was sad. 
 
 Enter and live ! thou hast not lived before ; 
 
 We were but soul-cast shadows. Ah, no more 
 
 The heart shall bear the burdens of the brain; 
 
 Now shall the strong heart think, nor think in vain. 
 
 In the dear company of peace, and those 
 
 Who bore for man life's utmost agony, 
 
 Thy soul shall climb to cliffs of still repose, 
 
 And see before thee lie Time's mystery, 
 
 And that which is God's time, Eternity ; 
 
 Whence sweeping over thee dim myriad things, 
 
 The awful centuries yet to be, in hosts 
 
 That stir the vast of heaven with formless wings, 
 
 Shall cast for thee their shrouds, and, like to ghosts, 
 
 Unriddle all the past, till, awed and still, 
 
 Thy soul the secret hath of good and ill. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
266 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Mr. Louis Alexander Robertson, in "Beyond the Re- 
 quiems" 
 
 ******* 
 
 All our philosophic pedants, all our sons of Science 
 
 know 
 Not a whit more than dullard knew a million years 
 
 ago, 
 
 As to where the spirit wanders when the body sinks in 
 
 death, 
 For beyond the grave's black portals never man has 
 
 breathed one breath. 
 
 We have probed the past and hunted in its deepest, 
 
 darkest cells, 
 But the secret still eludes us, never by one whisper 
 
 tells 
 
 Whence Life drew its first faint tremor, for it was not 
 
 born of naught ; 
 Never seed spontaneous blossoms till the quickening 
 
 breath be brought. 
 
 As we know not the beginning, so we may not know 
 
 the end, 
 But as life from life first started, back through death 
 
 to life 'twill wend. 
 
 Now and then some guide arises who would turn us 
 
 from our path 
 With sweet promises that please us, or with threats 
 
 of future wrath. 
 
 We have listened to His lessons, heard the Naza- 
 
 rene's behest, — 
 " Follow me, my way-worn children; I alone can 
 
 give ye rest." 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 267 
 
 Miss Gertrude Bloede, "Stuart Sterne," in The At- 
 lantic Monthly. 
 
 SOUL, WHEREFORE FRET THEE? 
 
 Soul, wherefore fret thee? Striving still to throw 
 Some light upon the primal mystery 
 Through rolling ages pondered ceaselessly, 
 
 Whence thou hast come, and whither thou shalt go ! 
 
 Some deepest, secret voice gives thee to* know 
 How, older than created earth and sea, 
 Thou hast been ever, shalt forever be, — 
 
 Unborn — undying! Thy own life doth show, 
 Yester, to-day, to-morrow, but a chain 
 Of dusky pearls, whereof we seek in vain 
 
 End or beginning, though perchance the one 
 
 We call To-day gleams whitest in the sun. 
 Ay, Soul, thy very Self is unto thee 
 Immortal pledge of Immortality! 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 Arlo Bates, A. M., Litt. D., Professor of English 
 Literature, Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology, in "Sonnets in Shadow" 
 
 OH, EGOTISM OF AGONY 
 
 Oh, egotism of agony! While we 
 
 Weep thus sore stricken, filling earth with moan, 
 The feet of those we love, through ways unknown, 
 
 Brought into lands of living light may be. 
 
 E'n our tear-blinded eyes can dimly see 
 
 What heights are reached by sorrow's paths alone, 
 Where heavenly joy and radiance shall atone 
 
 For gloom and woe that held us utterly; 
 
268 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 And sure our dead, loftier of soul, and now 
 Free from the weakness human sight will mar, 
 Must death with power and vision new endow. 
 If we, blind, groping, feel the truth afar, 
 They wear its very radiance on their brow. 
 Death takes a rush-light, but he gives a star! 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Miss Edna Dean Proctor, in "Poems." 
 
 HEAVEN, O LORD, I CANNOT LOSE 
 
 Now Summer finds her perfect prime; 
 
 Sweet blows the wind from western calms; 
 On every bower red roses climb. 
 
 The meadows sleep in mingled balms. 
 Nor stream, nor bank the wayside by, 
 
 But lilies float and daisies throng; 
 Nor space of blue and sunny sky 
 
 That is not cleft with soaring song. 
 O flowery morn, O tuneful eves, 
 
 Fly swift! my soul ye cannot fill! 
 Bring the ripe fruit, the garnered sheaves, 
 
 The drifting snows on plain and hill. 
 Alike, to me, fall frosts and dews; 
 
 But Heaven, O Lord, I cannot lose! 
 
 Warm hands to-day are clasped in mine ; 
 
 Fond hearts my mirth or mourning share; 
 And, over hope's horizon line, 
 
 The future dawns, serenely fair. 
 Yet still, though fervent vow denies, 
 
 I know the rapture will not stay; 
 Some wind of grief or doubt will rise 
 
 And turn my rosy sky to gray. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 269 
 
 I shall awake, in rainy morn, 
 
 To find my hearth left lone and drear; 
 
 Thus half in sadness, half in scorn, 
 I let my life burn on as clear 
 
 Though friends grow cold or fond love woos; 
 But Heaven, O Lord, I cannot lose. 
 
 In golden hours the angel Peace 
 
 Comes down and broods me with her wings; 
 I gain from sorrow sweet release; 
 
 I mate me with divinest things ; 
 When shapes of guilt and gloom arise 
 
 And far the radiant angel flees, 
 My song is lost in mournful sighs, 
 
 My wine of triumph left but lees ; 
 In vain for me her pinions shine, 
 
 And pure, celestial days begin; 
 Earth's passion-flowers I still must twine, 
 
 Nor braid one beauteous lily in. 
 Ah! is it good or ill I choose? 
 
 But Heaven, O Lord, I cannot lose! 
 
 So wait I. Every day that dies 
 
 With flush and fragrance born of June, 
 I know shall more resplendent rise 
 
 Where summer needs nor sun nor moon. 
 And every bud, on love's low tree, 
 
 Whose mocking crimson flames and falls, 
 In fullest flower I yet shall see 
 
 High-blooming by the jasper walls. 
 Nay, every sin that dims my days, 
 
 And wild regrets that veil the sun, 
 Shall fade before those dazzling rays, 
 
 And my long glory be begun ! 
 Let the years come to bless or bruise : 
 
 Thy Heaven, O Lord, I shall not lose. 
 
 South Framingham, Mass. 
 
2 7 o WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Mr. Oscar Fay Adams, Author and Lecturer. 
 
 DEAR HEART, BELIEVE 
 
 Dear heart, believe I think of you 
 When evening's grey shuts out the blue, 
 In the slow hours of middle night, 
 Or when the lances of the light 
 First pierce the mists of darkness through. 
 
 Naught can the days of absence do 
 If love be strong, and hearts be true, 
 To blur with change affection's might, 
 Dear heart, believe ! 
 
 If sullen death between us drew 
 
 The veil that bars from earthly view 
 The much loved face, the clearer sight 
 Would still discern, in death's despite, 
 
 Beyond the veil can love pursue, 
 Dear heart, believe I 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Mrs. Cynthia Westover Alden, President Interna- 
 tional Sunshine Society. 
 
 JUST A DEWDROP 
 
 I — who am I ! Just a dewdrop, 
 Glittering, glistening on the roseleaf ; 
 Yet I help to* make Niagara, 
 Help to* make the mightiest torrents. 
 Just a dewdrop, quickly passing, 
 Thing of beauty in the sunshine; 
 Yet through me the desert blossoms, 
 Giving life where death was present. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 271 
 
 Just a dewdrop, hardly noticed, 
 Never counted as a world force; 
 Yet I move the giant engine 
 Which without me were impotent. 
 Just a dewdrop, not a diamond, 
 Doomed to cry and die so shortly; 
 Yet I help create the ocean, 
 On which man is but a feather. 
 Just a dewdrop, gone by noontide, 
 Perished, vanished like a phantom; 
 Yet my soul is everlasting, 
 So I go to weightier duties — 
 Type of souls to him who ponders 
 On the models of creation. 
 Though alone I can do nothing, 
 Merged with others I'm resistless; 
 So may you, the human atom, 
 Learn the logic of existence. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Mr. William Ordway Partridge, Author and Sculp- 
 tor, in "The Song-Life of a Sculp tor. " 
 
 SOWING TO THE SPIRIT 
 
 If thou hast struck one blow for liberty, 
 
 Be of slave or shackled intellect, 
 
 Thou hast not failed. If into some lone life 
 
 The light of nobler days has come through thee, 
 
 Flooding the shadowed years with sympathy : 
 
 Or if some soul of moral vision dim 
 
 Has, through thy love, been led to clearer things, — 
 
 Thou hast not failed. If thou hast given a meaning 
 
 To flowers that yesterday were set aside, 
 
 And clothed them with the beauty of thy thought; 
 
272 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 If to hard-handed labor thou hast made 
 Sweet with enduring rest the twilight hour, 
 Or shown the beauty of the field and sky 
 Unto the peasant, or across the wave 
 Unto some brother thou hast stretched a hand 
 Amid the oft deceiving tides of life, — 
 Thou hast not failed. Or if alone thy lot 
 To find thine own deep faults, and feel the need, 
 The ever present need of prayer, and faith 
 In men and things divine, thy life has been 
 Of more enduring worth than that of kings, 
 Princes, and prophets of the earth. The world 
 Alas, is but the world. Hold it at naught, 
 And do not soil thy sandals with its dust, 
 Or leave them still without the temple gate ! 
 Undaunted, yet with calm humility; 
 Thy sympathy still deepening with thy years — 
 And past the bourn of failure or success — 
 Enter in peace the kingdoms of thy soul. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Charlotte Fiske Bates (Mme. Roge). 
 
 IMMORTAL THROUGH MORTALITY 
 
 Count each birthday of the dead! 
 
 Thinkest thou they cannot care? 
 Ah 1 ! believe, when Thither fled, 
 
 Birthdays link the here and There. 
 
 When some far-off eve or morn 
 
 Gave that faint breath to the earth, 
 
 Immortality was born ! 
 
 Slight thou not a day of birth. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 273 
 
 When to God's Diviner Sphere 
 
 Some loved soul has entered in! 
 Were it not for advent here, 
 
 Heaven's high advent had not been. 
 
 (From "Risk and Other Poetns.") 
 IN GOOD TIME 
 
 Some of God's truest friends yet dread to die; 
 
 Their faith but props the weight of daily need, 
 And in confusion, oft they question why 
 
 Beneath the thought of death, it turns a reed. 
 
 Beside dear graves God's friends must often weep, 
 Conning his revelation with a pain: 
 
 The promise seems too marvellous to keep, 
 That dust shall rise and claim its soul again. 
 
 The changing chrysalis, the springing seed, 
 And every miracle that Nature shows 
 
 To help weak man hold firmly to his creed, 
 In some fierce agony for nothing goes. 
 
 And though the creed were firm, a pang lies here : 
 Can what was once so precious to the sight 
 
 In any other form be quite so dear? 
 The human dreads a resurrection-light. 
 
 O struggling hearts! in such a mood as this 
 Not too severely tax your souls with sin : 
 
 Doubt not your heirship to eternal bliss, 
 
 Because the future throws faint light within. 
 
274 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 God sees that some would never be content 
 
 To work their work if faith should trench on sight : 
 
 The inner eye, on morning's glory bent, 
 
 Would make some souls impatient for the night. 
 
 God lets faith lend His glory as we need 
 To do life's duty — rarely for its ease; 
 
 But when the hands have wrought their last good 
 deed, 
 Faith shines in fulness till the spirit sees. 
 
 Waverley, Mass. 
 
 Mr. John Vance Cheney, Librarian Newberry 
 Library. 
 
 BY AND BY 
 
 At last somewhere, some happy day, 
 The bliss will round us lie; 
 For all a joyous way 
 Toi follow by and by. 
 
 'Tis promised by the bird, the brook, 
 The wide unsyllabled air; 
 Whither I chance to look 
 I see it written there. 
 
 It flows from every star that wheels, 
 From every flower that blows, 
 From all a young heart feels, 
 From all an old heart knows, 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 275 
 From "Lyrics" 
 
 DEATH 
 
 Fearest the shadow? Keep thy trust; 
 Still the star-worlds roll. 
 Fearest death? sayest, "Dust to dust?" 
 No; say, "Soul to soul !" 
 Chicago, Ills. 
 
 Miss Lilian Whiting, in "From Dreamland Sent. 
 GATES OF EDEN 
 
 O Love! in the Heavenly Country. 
 
 Immortally young and fair, 
 With the rose and the gold of the morning 
 
 Just touching your lips and your hair, — 
 Through the rifts of the mists and shadows 
 
 I catch a hint of your grace; 
 And, turning, I feel your presence 
 
 Where before was but empty space. 
 
 Sometimes, in the star-lit silence, 
 
 On an inner sense there falls 
 Your voice, like remembered music, 
 
 And a vanished time recalls. 
 But the present is richer, my darling, 
 
 Though between us now there lies 
 That wonderful, mystical region, 
 
 Beyond which is Paradise. 
 
 And thus ever sweet-companioned, 
 
 I will go on my way ; 
 Life deepens in beauty and meaning 
 
 With every succeeding day. 
 
276 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 While you, in the Heavenly Country, 
 
 Immortally young and fair, 
 Meet the rose and the gold of the morning 
 
 Just touching your lips and your hair. 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Mr. Bliss Carman, in "The Word at St. Kavin's." 
 
 THE SCEPTIC 
 
 The Sceptic sees but part 
 Of Nature's mighty heart, 
 
 A wide berth would I give that dangerous shoal,- 
 Steer for the open sea, 
 No sight of land, but free, 
 Trusting my senses, shall I doubt my soul? 
 New York City. 
 
 Anna Katharine Green, B. A., (Mrs. Charles 
 Rohlfs), in "The Defence of the Bride! 1 
 
 ROSA, DYING 
 
 Then this is death — 
 
 How strange, how strange ! Another hour, 
 Another breath 
 
 Of joyous life, of love, and all is o'er, 
 The scarcely opened blossom perished in its flower ! 
 
 And I so' young ! 
 
 Ah, when I first awoke to hear 
 The music rung 
 
 From what had once been only held so dear, 
 Because in outward show it glimmered bright and 
 clear, 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 277 
 
 It seemed to me 
 
 The longest life was all too fleet 
 An ecstasy 
 For one to< hear the mighty ages beat 
 
 Their hidden meanings out in harmony complete. 
 
 And now I die! 
 
 And all the hopes which girlhood hath 
 Go softly by, 
 
 Stranding upon the silent shores of Death 
 Like little boats blown home by twilight's purple 
 breath. 
 
 Nay, rather, Heart, 
 
 Like little boats which at the dawn 
 In joy depart, 
 
 And on towards the open sea are borne, 
 Where rounds to* perfect noon, a vague imperfect 
 morn. 
 
 Buffalo, N. Y. 
 
 Mr. Clinton Scollard, in The Independent. 
 LIFT UP THINE EYES 
 
 Comrade, that seek'st the clue 
 Of whence and whither to, 
 Rather in trust let be 
 
 The shrouded mystery! 
 
 Brood not, but toward the skies 
 
 Lift up thine eyes ! 
 
 If the sworn friendship fail, 
 And fleering foes assail, 
 If Love, half-deified, 
 Turn scornfully aside, 
 If ogre Doubt arise, 
 Lift up thine eyes ! 
 
278 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Grip faith to thee (not fate!) 
 In the good ultimate! 
 With this, from sun to sun 
 Until thy race be run, 
 And the last daylight dies, 
 Lift up thine eyes ! 
 
 WHAT WAS SHALL BE 
 
 How fair the fields aforetime gleamed, 
 Arrayed with bloom that lured the bee! 
 
 And how the wind-wrecked woodland dreamed 
 Behind its varied tapestry ! 
 
 Song mounted silvering up the sky, 
 
 Rang rapturous through the naves of blue; 
 
 Close seemed the silences to lie 
 Tot music such as Ariel knew. 
 
 What was shall be ! O heart of mine, 
 
 In earth's renascence — blade and bloom — 
 
 May we not rightfully divine 
 
 The vernal light — beyond the tomb? 
 Clinton, N. Y. 
 
 Mr. David Banks Sickels, Banker. 
 
 REINCARNATION 
 
 It cannot be that He who made 
 
 This wondrous world for our delight, 
 Designed that all its charms should fade 
 
 And pass forever from our sight; 
 That all shall wither and decay, 
 
 And know on earth no life but this, 
 With only one finite survey 
 
 Of all its beauty and its bliss. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 279 
 
 It cannot be that all the years 
 
 Of toil and care and grief we live 
 Shall find no recompense but tears, 
 
 No sweet return that earth can give; 
 That all that leads us to aspire, 
 
 And struggle onward to achieve, 
 And every unattained desire 
 
 Were given only to deceive. 
 
 It cannot be that, after all 
 
 The mighty conquests of the mind, 
 Our thoughts shall pass beyond recall 
 
 And leave no record here behind; 
 That all our dreams of love and fame, 
 
 And hopes that time has swept away, — 
 All that enthralled this mortal frame, — 
 
 Shall not return some other day. 
 
 It cannot be that all the ties 
 
 Of kindred souls and loving hearts 
 Are broken when this body dies, 
 
 And the immortal mind departs; 
 That no serener light shall break 
 
 At last upon our mortal eyes, 
 To guide us as our footsteps make 
 
 The pilgrimage to Paradise. 
 New York City. 
 
280 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Miss Ina D. Coolbrith, in "Songs from the Golden 
 Gate:' 
 
 A LAST WORD 
 
 (To my Mother.) 
 
 Not more removed with the long years' increase, 
 Through hours when storms upon thy roof of clay 
 Have beat, or when the blossom of the May 
 
 Has the fettered winter smiled release, — 
 
 Not from my heart one thought of thee could cease, 
 O loved and mourned to-day as on that day 
 When from my sight thy presence passed away, 
 
 Thou spirit of all gentleness and peace ! 
 
 Nay, in the long, long ways I walk alone 
 Still with me ! on my brow thy touch is laid 
 Softly, — when all too great my burden grown . . . 
 
 And I shall go, serenely, unafraid, 
 
 Into the dark — well knowing what dear tone — 
 Whose hand to mine — O thou beloved shade ! 
 
 WHEN THE SPIRIT BREAKS AWAY 
 
 When the spirit breaks away 
 
 From this brittle house of clay, 
 
 Does the will forego its will? 
 
 Is the voice's music still? 
 
 Do the hands forget their skill? 
 
 From that harp great Homer's heart, 
 
 Do no mighty numbers come? 
 
 Lost divinest Raphael's art, 
 
 And the lips of Shakespeare dumb ? 
 
 All the years of joy and pain 
 
 That are lived but lived in vain ? 
 
 Memory's graven page a blot, 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 281 
 
 Unrecorded and forgot? 
 
 O, believe, believe it not! 
 
 Man is God's incarnate thought; 
 
 Life, with all the gifts He gave, 
 
 All the wondrous powers He wrought, 
 
 Finds not ending at the grave ; 
 
 Part, himself, of Deity, 
 
 Man, the spirit, canot die. . . . 
 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge* Editor of St. Nicholas, 
 in the former Scribner's Magazine, now The 
 Century. 
 
 THE TWO MYSTERIES 
 
 ["In the middle of the room, near the coffin, sat 
 Walt Whitman, holding a beautiful little girl on his 
 lap. She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of 
 death, and then inquiringly into the face of the aged 
 poet, ' You don't know what it is, do you, my dear ?' 
 said he, and added, 'We don't, either.' "] 
 
 We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and 
 still; 
 The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so 
 pale and chill; 
 The lids that will not lift again, though we may call 
 and call; 
 The strange, white solitude of peace that settles 
 over all. 
 
 *Died Aug. 21, 1905. 
 
282 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 We know not what it means, dear, this desolate 
 heart-pain; 
 This dread to take our daily way, and walk in it 
 again; 
 We know not to what other sphere the loved who 
 leave us go, 
 Nor why we're left to wonder still, nor why we 
 do not know. 
 
 But this we know: Our loved and dead, if they 
 should come this day, — 
 Should come and ask us, "What is life?" — not one 
 of us could say. 
 Life is a mystery as deep as ever death can be; 
 Yet oh ! how dear it is to us, this life we live and 
 sees! 
 
 Then might they say, — these vanished ones, — and 
 
 blessed is the thought, 
 "So death is sweet to us, beloved! though we may 
 
 show you naught; 
 We may not to the quick reveal the mystery of 
 
 death — 
 Ye cannot tell us, if ye would, the mystery of 
 
 breath." 
 
 The child who enters life comes not with knowledge 
 or intent, 
 So those who enter death must go as little children 
 sent. 
 Nothing is known. But nearing God, what hath the 
 soul to dread? 
 And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead. 
 New York City. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 283 
 
 Gen. Horatio C. King, LL.D., Lawyer and Author. 
 
 ASPIRATION 
 
 When life's last duty is finished, 
 
 And the tale is ended and told; 
 
 When all that we cherished has vanished, 
 
 And in death we lie mute and cold; 
 
 We shall rise and in light we shall glory, 
 
 In the light of our Saviour divine, 
 
 And the face of our infinite Master, 
 
 On us forever shall shine. 
 
 O Father of tender compassion! 
 
 O Saviour of fathomless love! 
 
 We turn from the things that are earthly 
 
 To the nobler things above. 
 
 And we pray for thy strengthening presence, 
 
 For the hand that shall lead us on, 
 
 Till we reach the heavenly mansions, 
 
 And rest in the joys we've won. 
 
 OUR HEAVENLY HOME 
 
 From over the river they beckon to us, 
 
 Those shadowy forms on the other shore, 
 Their garments washed white in the blood of the 
 Lamb, 
 
 In angelic chorus they sing evermore, 
 Oh ! radiant their smiles as patient they wait, 
 
 The ceaseless advance of the murmuring tide, 
 That brings to their arms in loving embrace 
 
 The myriad beloved who in Jesus have died. 
 We shall go where the virtues that shone upon earth 
 
 Shall shine with a brighter, a holier light, 
 
284 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 Where footsteps of angels fall soft on the ear, 
 Like whisp'ring of zephyrs, of winds in the night. 
 
 We shall go where the laugh is not broken by sighs, 
 Or the tremulous body distorted by pains, 
 
 Where the light of our lives is the smile of our God, 
 And pleasure celestial eternally reigns. 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 Charles Carroll Bonney, LL.D., Lawyer and Jurist, 
 Originator and General President of World! s 
 Congresses, including Parliament of Religions .* 
 
 HENRY CLAY 
 
 He is immortal now ! 
 
 The angel-monarch Death, the mightiest, 
 That most majestic and benign of all 
 The spirits strong and beautiful, to whom 
 The great Creative Father has consign'd 
 The keeping of our lives and destinies, 
 Hath come at last to this illustrious 
 And aged man, in th' harvest of his years, 
 Of all his ripened honors and great deeds, 
 And broke the last dear fetter that still kept 
 His lofty soul within its wondrous home 
 
 *One of the first letters sent out by the compiler was to 
 the organizer of the Parliament of Religions. It brought 
 this reply: "My father passed to the world beyond last 
 August. I can best answer your question by sending his own 
 words, which express the faith of his life." Those words 
 may now be fitly used in reference to their author's dis- 
 tinguished and prophetic life. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 285 
 
 Of living dust; hath robed his glorified 
 And new-born spirit for a radiant home 
 Of untold beauty, in the Eden Land, 
 And, like an elder brother, led him through 
 The pall-hung portal to the unseen way 
 Which goeth out from life, and leadeth down 
 In the vale of shadows, and from out 
 Its realms of grand, enchanting beauty, up 
 
 A pearl-pav'd pathway, into Paradise. 
 
 ****** 
 
 He needs no marble monument to keep 
 His fame and give it to posterity, 
 His deeds are living temples, and in them 
 He will live on forever! 
 
 We say, he's dead — 
 We mean his mortal body is put off, 
 We mean the form in which he dwelt on earth 
 Has been chang'd for one more glorious — 
 One incorruptible. For truly, he 
 Still lives, more really than e'er he lived 
 Before: but he hath left the troubl'd sphere 
 Of the corporeal life, to fill a more 
 Exalted station, as a member of 
 The august senate of the mighty dead. 
 In the Supreme Lawgiver's grand domain 
 Hath he departed! 
 
 Yet his long career 
 Of great, immortal deeds, now sanctified 
 By Death's sublime ordeal, giv'n up 
 To History, the keeper of the past, 
 Shall make his name a hallow'd "household word," 
 And in the bright'ning glory of those deeds 
 He lives forever. 
 
286 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 (From "Golden Lessons.") 
 Death is no» longer conqueror and king, 
 The grave no more is darkness and despair. 
 The Lord of Lords hath rolled away the stone 
 Of gloom that barred its portal, and let in 
 The everlasting sunshine of His throne ; 
 And now the eye of Faith may clearly see, 
 Beyond the tomb, the Holy City's spires; 
 And, through the open gates, may catch a glimpse 
 Of well-remembered faces, full of love 
 And peace and beauty and celestial joy. 
 And our exultant hearts cry out, Oh ! Death, 
 Where is thy sting? Grave, where thy victory? 
 Chicago, Ills. 
 
 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley, A. M. y Litt. D. } in "Arma- 
 zindy." 
 
 OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE INTO 
 THE YON 
 
 Out of the hitherwhere into the YON — 
 The land that the Lord's love rests upon ; 
 Where one may rely on the friends he meets, 
 And the smiles that greet him along the streets: 
 Where the mother that left you years ago 
 Will lift the hands that were folded so-, 
 And put them about you, with all the love 
 And tenderness you are dreaming o»f. 
 
 Out of the hitherwhere into the YON — 
 Where all the friends of your youth have gone, — 
 Where the old schoolmate that laughed with you, 
 Will laugh again as he used to do>, 
 Running to meet you, with such a face 
 As lights like a moon the wondrous place 
 Where God is living, and glad to live, 
 Since He is the Master and may forgive. 
 
SHALL A MAN LIVE AGAIN 287 
 
 Out of the hitherwhere into the YON I — 
 Stay the hopes we are leaning on — 
 You, Divine, with Your merciful eyes 
 Looking down from the far-away skies, — 
 Smile upon us, and reach and take 
 Our worn souls Home for the old home's sake. — 
 And so Amen — for our all seems gone 
 Out of the hitherwhere into the YON. 
 Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 Prof. T. Berry Smith, in the Christian Advocate. 
 NOT DEAD— NOT LOST— NOT FAR 
 
 Not dead! 
 
 No! no! not dead, just laid away from sight 
 To slumber undisturbed through one long night 
 Instead of many brief ones such as fall 
 In swift recurrence o'er us one and all. 
 If thou art glad to lay thy weary head 
 Upon the pillow of thy nightly bed, 
 And lose thyself in slumber, wherefore weep 
 When loved ones rest in nature's dreamless sleep? 
 Since now we wake when night has passed away 
 In the old likeness of the former day, 
 May we not hope to see them face to face 
 Who in the churchyard have their resting place? 
 Believe the Master; o'er and o'er He said — 
 "Why weepest thou? Only asleep — 
 Not dead — not dead!" 
 
 Not lost! 
 
 No! no! not lost, just parted for a day 
 While we make journey on the homeward way, 
 When shades of evening fall and with desire 
 We seek our own at every friendly fire 
 
288 WHAT'S NEXT OR 
 
 And find them not, then 'neath night's diadem 
 Turning our faces toward Jerusalem 
 And thither coming, by and by we'll find 
 The ones whom yesterday we left behind — 
 Not on the streets by passing scenes beguiled 
 Where Mary mourning sought her missing child, 
 But in the Father's house and His employ 
 Where Mary found at last her precious boy. 
 There in the midst of God's sanhedral host 
 We'll hear; "Why sought ye me? I was 
 Not lost — not lost!" 
 
 Not far! 
 
 No ! no ! not far, just hidden from our eyes 
 Which wide would open with a glad surprise 
 Could we but have for one moment the power 
 Elisha's servant had on Dothan's tower, 
 To see how near us are the hosts unseen 
 Guarding our lives, whose bucklers held between 
 Serve day and night to foil the quivering darts 
 A wanton world flings at our aching hearts. 
 Our eyes are holden and we cannot see 
 How near our loved ones in the shadows be; 
 Thro' cloudless days and days without a star 
 Close by our sides like sentinels they stand 
 Keeping the promise of the last command : 
 u Lo! I am with you alway"— near — 
 Not far — not far ! 
 Fayette, Ma. 
 
U I stand upon the summit of my life; 
 Behind, the camp, the court, the field, the grove, 
 The battle and the burden; vast, afar, 
 Beyond these weary ways, Behold, the Sea! 
 The sea o y erswept by clouds and wings and wings, 
 By thoughts and wishes manifold, whose breath 
 Is freshness, and whose mighty pulse is peace. 
 Palter no question of the horizon dim, — 
 Cut loose the bark; such voyage itself is rest. 
 Majestic motion,, unimpeded scope, 
 A widening heaven, a current without care, 
 Eternity! deliverance, promise, course! 
 Time-tired souls salute thee from the shore." 
 
 — Joseph Brownlee Brown. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 JUN 9 1348 
 
 
 
 
 23Jul't 
 
 
 
 REC'D 
 
 
 
 JUL 2 3 1960 
 
 
 
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