DEATH OF CHANGE—WHICH IS IT?

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4364, 28 December 1882, Page 2

DEATH OF CHANGE—WHICH IS IT?

(To the Editor of the Evening Stab.)

Sib,—l should not have any pleasure in going on with this controversy on life and death with Mr Wood if no one read it but him, for he does not appear to be able to comprehend what I am writing about. He reminds me of a man I knew well, who said that he could prove that the earth did not revolve round upon its axis every twenty-four hours, and his proof was this, that he had known an old house for a long time, and that house was slated with large stone slates, and if the earth turned upside down those slates would have fallen off. You have great difficulty in reaching such men as those. Mr W. is in this position. He does not appear to know that plain every-day fact that the body is continually throwing off waste matter, and that it is continually renewed by new matter, and because he cannot comprehend it he says it it is nonsense. After thi9, if it was not for many of your intelligent readers who understand this, I should have no heart to continue. I say, with thousands more, that the real man, that is the spirit, never dies, that the body is only a tool the spirit makes use of. And at the change called death the body is no more than a lump of clay or other dead matter, and passes back to its native element to start its rounds again. But the spirit lives on for ever. This is a demonstrated fact. Mr W. says I do not believe in Bible teaching. I never said so. I do not believe in the infallibility of the Bible. That which appears to my judgment to be true I accept, that which appears to be.false I reject. Because someone chooses to call the Bible God's word, is that any proof it is so, or a reason why it should be made use of to crush truth and goodness out of us. The Bible teaches that God was a jealous God, and had an ungovernable temper, and that when in a rage He swore in His wrath, Through reverence and respect for the all-wise and gpod God, I reject it. And if a hundred Bibles said the same I should reject it without hesitation. But such as Mr W. not only require you to believe the whole Bible, but their inter' pretation of it. And why should this book be exalted above reason, above common sense, above truth, above facts, and above God ? Cannot God speak to man now through reason and His sublime intuition ? Did He speak his last word to man eight hundred years since, and no one has had a word from Him since ? Does not one spontaneous voice come from all nature proclaiming the power, wisdom, and goodness of God P And nature is not a revised edition. We have it at first hand, new from the Maker. Such as Mr W. are materialists, and rely solely upon the resurrection of which body that is placed in the grave for a continuation of life. But materialists know that to be impossible; they can have uo hope from that quarter. And they are generally shrewd-thinking men, and cannot be fed with chaff.-I am, &c, J. Hoßif.