THE SOUL IMMORTAL.
Prize Oration of Junior Oratorical Contest, June 24, 1890
Life, Death, and Immortality. Who can fath
om the deep meaning of these three words ? The
master minds of all ages have been at work upon
their solution. Life on earth ends in death, and
death is the dark door to the other life in the still
land beyond. The soul looking out from its
home of clay beholds the actions and effects of
that which is called Life. But what is this life ?
To the present hour, the only answer reached by
all scientific research and all philosophical inqui
ry has been, Life is force. If we go one step
farther and inquire what is force, the ever ready
reply is, force is life.
The study of this great question, what is life,
leads us into realms unseen and unexplored.
Does matter generate life into itself, or do we
conceive of it as having been supplied to the
world at the beginning of all life on the globe,
and handed down to succeeding generations of
living forms? Is this vital force chemical or
physical ? What is it ? The physical laws may
explain the inorganic world, the biological laws
may account for the development of the organic,
but as to the point where they meet, as to that
strange mysterious borderland between the dead
and the living, science is silent. Behind all
remains a something which the scientist calls
law, which Spencer calls the unknowable, and
which the Theist calls God.
Life, then, in all its forms, however definable
by its phenomena, is confessedly a mystery. The
inorganic world is staked off from the living world
by barriers which have never yet been crossed
from within. No change of substance, no change
of environment, no chemistry, no electricity, nor
any form of energy, nor any evolution can endow
any single atom of the mineral world with
the attribute of life. It is only by the bending
down into this dead world of some living form
that these dead atoms can be gifted with the
properties of vitality.
TTHE FREE LA^CEi.
In the study of this question the mortal mind
has reached the shore of a vast uncertainty, along
which men are still blindly groping to find, if
possible, the mystic way to their misty conjectures
which seem to lie on the unexplored heights be
yond. When at last we think we can distinguish
something more than has yet been revealed, the
light goes out and we are left in the daikness—
the darkness of the grave.
As great if not greater,are the mysteries of des
olation which surround us in the midst of strength,
of beauty and of splendor. These blossoms, these
shapes and tissues which are almost less material
than immaterial, even the human form divine,
moulder and sink into dust.
The glory of the sunset on the hill grows pale.
A strange and appropiate stillness falls upon the
earth. Not a breath pervades the awful stillness.
Solitude and silence reign supreme. But hark !
There speaks a voice firmly and not altogether
unkindly. “Thy time is come.’’ An icy coldness
strikes the heart. Whose voice it this? Is there
one standing near us, invisible friend or foe?
Speak and tell us who thou art. There is no
response; its nature and character are known
only by its desolation, —
What is this that causes broken hearts and des
olate homes, heaving bosoms and tearstained
eyes? The bleeding spirit gazing upon their deso
lation cries out: “Oh, thou invisiblespirit, if thou
hast no other name we willcal,l thee Death.” Oh,
monster, stay thy hand, sheath thy sword, let one
kindly thought penetrate thy heart, if thou hast a
heart; and comfort, by cessation, the sorrowing
spirit of humanity for one moment. Thou art
unmoved. The silence of eternity settles about
thee.
All around us thy work is seen, O death ; but
no chemist, no microscope, no scalpel, no pierc
ing mortal foe can find thee. Poetry draws near
1 Yota few days, amt tlioo,
Tlioall beholding sun shall soo no more
111 all his course ; nor yot In tho cold ground,
Where thy palo lorm was laid, with many tears,
Nor In the embraoo of ooean shall exist
Thy Imago.”