"The grave itself is but a covered bridge, "The eye that shuts in a dying hour Will open next in bliss ; The welcome will sound in the heavenly world Ere the farewell is hushed in this." "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." Death, the shade-side of conscious life, is comparable to a star, that, fading from telescopic vision, sets to illumine others in the siderial heavens; to a rose that, on a morning in June, climbs up the garden wall to bloom the other side. The Greek, anastasis, generally translated by the English word, resurrection, does not necessarily signify, that those to whom it refers should be physically dead. In the scriptures and the classics, it is often applied to the living. Its best definition implies a rising, an exaltation, a being lifted up higher in regard to condition or circumstance. The learned Dr. Campbell says: "It denotes simply being raised from inactivity to action, or from obscurity to eminence." Anisterni, the verb form, has a signification equally wide, as used by Grecian writers, both before and after the Christian era. Therefore, in the original, rising from a seat, awakening out of sleep, or being promoted to a higher condition, may be legitimately, termed an anastasis-a resurrection. Persians, Mahommedans, Jews, and Christians, with very few exceptions, believe in the literal resurrection of these physical bodies-somata-while the great army of Spiritualists, in constant converse with the spirit-world, utterly repudiates the theory. Mineral matter to matter in accordance with gravitation and adaptation-dust with its primitive dust-and spirit heavenward towards the perfections of Infinite spirit-is the immutable law as seen from the spiritual side of this question. In that Christian writer's work-Dr. Young's-entitled "The Last Day," the dogma of the resurrection of the mortal body is carried to the ultimate Augustine, hard pressed upon the point, of cannibalism, said, "The flesh shall be restored to the man in whom it first became human flesh, regardless of the changes it may have passed through; for it is to be considered as borrowed, and, like borrowed money, must be returned to the one from whom it was taken." Among the most important words of the Episcopal creed, are these: "I believe in the resurrec * * * tion of the body and the life everlasting." Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, preaching the funeral discourse of elder Heber C. Kimball, said: "He has fallen asleep for a certain purpose. to be prepared for a glorious resurrection; and the same Heber C. Kimball, every component particle of his body, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, will be resurrected, and he, in the flesh, will see God and converse with Him; and see his brethren and associate with them, and they will enjoy a happy eternity together." The bodies that once walked the New Atlantis Isle-the mummied forms of Egypt's cemeteries transferred to fue or to medicines upon apothecaries shelves-the crumbli scattered remains that once peopled those old catacombs the Via Appia-the organized particles passing into visible gases, freed by the process of combusti inci to cremation, as practiced by some of the or 18-W are they?-are they to be raised, and reconstructed to constitute the future temples of souls? If so, "flesh and blood will inherit the kingdom of God; " though Paul, in one of his more highly illuminated moments taught the contrary; and further, we sow-bury the veritable body which shall be; though this same apostle said: "We sow not that body that shall be." "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." These natural, earthly bodies correspond to the chaff of the wheat-the husks of the corn. Harvest-time separates them forever; because the end for which they were united has been subserved. So with the earthly and spiritual bodies. The death-angel divides them forever. And just as well expect the blade of wheat to return and re-enter the kernel; the oak, the acorn, the butterfly, the chrysalis or, as reasonably expect songful birds to seek their dilapidated nests, taking on, and re-living in their old shells, as immortal spirits to return grave-ward in some future period, to seek and re-inhabit their earthly bodies. Nature knows no retrogression. Our mortal bodies are raised only in grasses and grains, forests and fruits; but our conscious souls move on in the line of progress towards the great infinite Soul of all things. Roger Williams, too liberal for the Puritanic Christianity of his time, was banished by Christians afar off among the heathen Indians-the Narraghansetts, who, in the gentle tolerance of Jesus, received him into their weird, wigwam homes. The Rev. J. H. McCarty, writing recently relative to the importance of erecting a suitable monument over the place where his body was interred, says: "On digging down into the 'charnel house' it was found that everything had passed into oblivion. The shapes of the coffins could only be traced by a black line of carbonaceous matter the thickness of the edges of the sides of the coffins, with their onds distinctly defined. The rusted remains of the hinges and nails, with a few fragments of wood and a single round knot, was all that could be gathered from his grave. In the grave of his wife there was not a trace of anything save a single lock of braided hair which had survived the lapse of more than 180 years. Near the grave stood a venerable apple tree, when and by whom planted is not known. This tree had sent two of its main roots into the graves of Mr. and Mrs. Williams. The larger root had pushed its way through the earth till it reached the precise spot occupied by the skull of Roger Williams. There making a turn as if going round the skull, it followed the direction of the back bone to the hips. Here it divided into two branches, sending one along each leg to the heel, where they both turned upward to the toes. One of these roots formed a slight crook at the knee which makes the whole bear a very close resemblance to a human form. This singular root is preserved with great care, not only as an illustration of an important principle in vegetation, but for its historic association. There were the graves, emptied of every particle of human dust! Not a trace of anything was left!" The grave emptied of every particle of human dust!where gone? Those apple-tree roots, thrusting out their hungry feelers, absorbed it, to feed a yearly fruitage. Man partaking of this fruit, and appropriating it by a law of assimilation, it formed a part of their own bodies. The inquiry is, who will legitimately claim these elements, providing human bodies are to be raised? Motion inheres in all things. Particles in human bodies change from seven to twenty-seven years, depending upon condition and occupation. Admitting the record, Methusaleh living over nine hundred years, must have had some sixty or seventy different bodies which is to be anastasized! In certain islands of the ocean, savages, termed cannibals, killing their enemies, devour their flesh and drink their blood; so that the same earthly materials form the component parts of two or more individualized beings. Who is to own them in the resurrection? Where Bonaparte fought his most sanguine battles, waved the next season golden grain. These harvests were unusually luxuriant, because blood and muscle, had enriched the soil-a soil yielding in turn grains and grazing herds for the sustenance of man. To whom will these life-materials belong when anastasized and re-constructed? Children, passing as withered buds to summer-land spheres of innocence, grow |