WHERE ARE OUR DEAD SOLDIERS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 55, 3 November 1915, Page 2

WHERE ARE OUR DEAD SOLDIERS.

[To Tlik KmiuH Stbaxvord posr.] Sir, —Through your generosity in publishing the following, you may, I hope, have the privilege of southing | a lew aching hearts in our midst at a time when their dear ones have been killed at the trout.; Many an aching hoarfc has asked this question, longing Tor the smallest crumb of knowledge that would stop the pain of hopeless separation; and it is disappointing that modern orthodoxy has so little to say on the subject that can bring comfort or carry conviction. In most leases it has not even an answer to the inquiry as to whether the consciousness remains in a state of sleep waiting for some distant Day of Judgent, or whether., as most people wish lo believe, it goes straight to Heaven. Even the dear delusion of an eternal iHcll is still clung to, and we have seen recently a Baptist Minister resigning from his charge because his congregation could not suffer the outrageous modernity of his views on the subject. He dared to think that a young man, after laying down his life for his country, might escape eternal torment, even though he had not lived a religious life. His congregation could not accept this view, preferring, we -suppose, the theory of eternal damnation. Alas, for the dark and pitiless attributes which men foist upon Him whom, in the same breath, they call the Clod of Justice and of Love. It is happiness to turn from this episode, which disgraces a small New Zealand town to the views of llev. 0. T. Tweodole. The source from where he draws his knowledge is not apparent, but in the course of his sermon he said: Our gallant fellows slain in the war are not dead, but are more alive to-day than ever they were before, Their mortal bodies are dead, yet the men live. They are alive in the Spiritual Body, which is a real and effective body. They are possessed of all their faculties; they do not forget us; they still love us; and we can still help them, and they us. The dead are alive and very near and close to us. There is an evolutionary progression there as hero. It is through our neglect of the Communion of Saints they cannot moke their abounding life known to us. Thousands are around their loved ones to-day whispering: "I am not dead ; cannot you sec me Cannot you hear me?"—l am, etc., A. E. BLACKMAN.