If the life we live be a kindergarten or infancy of a larger and better
life somewhere else, Nature defeats her own ends, because myriads pass
on, leave here, with the most dwarfed intellects, utterly unprepared to
live here, and much less prepared to live in a higher state and on a
more lofty plane.
Were such a condition true, that this is but a transitory existence, we
should all have to go through the same schooling of life, and be
indelibly impressed with its lesson, with conviction and understanding
that the same mistakes would never be repeated, or the acquired
knowledge would be constantly and forever used.
There would be no deaths in infancy, as each child born would be
purposely sent here; neither would there be premature deaths, as no one
could leave without "learning his lesson."
There would be a fixed standard of knowledge and development that we
would be required to attain. Knowledge, or whatever condition Nature
imposed, would be our destiny, and we would devote our entire life to
its acquirement.
As it is, we bend our efforts and use our strength to avoid and to
escape the acquisition of knowledge.
If our life were given to us in order to pass through a school of
experience, the simplest truths would immediately manifest themselves to
our minds, and conviction would be instant and permanent.
But how sadly untrue is this premise!
For thousands, aye, for millions of years, the people have been
stupefied with the most ignorant and foolish superstition. An instance
that will present with great force an illustration of the utter folly of
the contention that we are living on this planet as a lesson in school,
lies in the fact that for thousands of years people not only believed
but religiously guarded the belief that the earth was flat.
Even to-day, with irrefutable demonstrations of the truth, there are
some people who either cannot, or will not, accept it.
As desirable as this theory of a transitory state may be, it is even
contrary to Nature herself. The entire scheme of Nature seems to be
fashioned upon the same principle as our life. The fearful struggle of
the elements involved squares identically with our own existence. Even
the gigantic constellations, flying with an incalculable velocity,
leaving destruction and desolation in their tracks, meet in their
ignorant and blind journey the same fate as we meet. Recent astronomical
discoveries speak of a struggle constantly taking place in those areas.
The belief of an existence after death is so untenable in the face of
many scientific discoveries of to-day, and of the irrefutable facts
that are constantly staring us in the face, that an instance or two are
all that are necessary to prove the fallacy of such a belief.
Under many circumstances we are unable to recognize our own blood
relations after a lapse of a certain length of time. Parents fail to
know their children; and children their parents. This is equally true in
every comparison and degree of relationship. Features and
characteristics undergo such a decided change and transformation that
recognition is ofttimes even impossible. Even the law courts are
continually called upon to determine the proper identity of persons, to
establish the ownership of property by other means than by personal
identification. Most remarkable of all, under new conditions, we do not
recognize ourselves within the interval of only a few seconds!
Try this if you would seek proof, and convince yourself that recognition
of your own personality is momentarily impossible, and that you must
resort to other senses than that of sight to identify yourself.
Put a wig upon your head, blacken your face, "make up" your features,
and when you have finished and are completely unaware of your changed
appearance, look into the mirror for your reflection and feel the
sensation of the startling fact that you know not yourself.
We speak of changes so radical in a person's appearance that we often
say we could not recognize him "in a thousand years."
What a ridiculous presumption it is, then, to maintain that we live
after death when _all_ senses are gone and perception is dead!
Again, how anyone can say that when we die we go to "heaven" is too
childish to consider, because when we die, instead of going up and to
heaven, we are put deep into the ground to moulder and to rot away.
What a far-fetched conclusion it is to assume that we live after death,
minus all the physical characteristics and under conditions utterly
incomprehensible to our minds! Even if, at death, the body turned into
invisible gases it would mean and prove absolutely nothing.
If we live after death, by what means can one person communicate with
another?
We cannot feel, because we have no hands.
We cannot see, because we have no eyes.
We cannot smell, because we have no nose.
We cannot hear, because we have no ears.
We cannot taste, because we have no mouth, no stomach.
But, with it all, these five mediums of sense are dependent upon a
_living brain_.
The fact that we suffer the loss of our senses even before death,
because of the complications in the make-up of our body, should be
sufficient proof of the nonexistence of a soul and the utter
impossibility of a life after death.
Unless we retain and maintain our sacred ties after death, another life
is valueless and void, useless and unnecessary. It is a fearful sadness
to think that the ones you love are to pass away into nothingness and be
no more; that the sparkling eyes will be dim forever; that the rosy
cheeks will no longer glow with radiant health; that the ruby lips will
fade into a deathly blue, motionless and forever still; that dimpled
hands and loving arms will never encircle you again, and the supremacy
and tenderness of your love must be crushed with a cold and callous
ferocity.
But, sad and mournful as it is, with the human heart beating hopelessly
against hope for only one more chance to kiss and caress and love the
one you so dearly cherish, it is nevertheless only too poignantly true
that death ends all.
Death means nothing to the affairs of the world.
To be taken from amid the world in such an ever-living condition as now
exists, is like taking a cup of water from an ever-full pail. The gap is
immediately filled, and the level of the water simultaneously adjusted,
leaving absolutely no trace of what has been withdrawn. Only the
individual suffers. What a mighty burst of heart there would be if we
all could feel and suffer at the same time!
Nature makes no difference and knows no distinction between the living
and the dead. The warm and tender rays of the sun, and its blistering
heat, fall alike upon the crying, innocent babe and the lifeless,
unfeeling corpse.
The sun does not shine to give us its necessary heat, without also
bringing to light some new problem and pain for our over-troubled hearts
to bear.
Murder, rape and greed look no different to Nature than goodness, virtue
and unselfishness.
Tears were made for the things that God causes, laughter is the result
of man's efforts.