One of the most remarkable books of later days is the 

 volume entitled "Modern Light on Immortality" by Henry 

 Frank, Speaker for the Metropolitan Independent Church of 

 New York City. 



It is a work, as well for the Theologian whose edifice is 

 founded upon faith, and the Scientific Materialist, who accepts 

 nothing which cannot be proved by chemical analysis, as for 

 the uncertain soul, troubled by the conflicting arguments 

 for and against an alleged revealed religion. 



The book is divided into two parts, the first giving a 

 fair and candid history of the origin of the belief of an eternal, 

 intelligent identity, after the disunion of our so-called material 

 and spiritual parts, as taught by the Christian, the Jew, the 

 Mohammedan and the faith of those millions of India which 

 accepts neither a distinct hereafter-individuality nor an utter 

 annihilation,— the Unity of a God, Emanation and Absorption 

 and absolute happiness in Nirvana or absolute rest, of 

 Vedaism or Buddhism. 



The second part is devoted, in an equally candid way to 

 the disclosures by modern science of the composition of the 

 human body and its connection with the powers and func- 

 tions of the soul, consciousness, or intelligence. 



Those who have advocated the possibility of an endless 

 physical existence on earth will find in this volume great 

 satisfaction where he says, "When mankind shall have dis- 

 covered the secret laws that appertain to the art of living, to 

 Nature's own marvelous principles of life sustentation, we 

 shall have overcome the mystery of death and shall continue 

 to live and fructify in the no longer mortal bodies we occupy ; 



or 



That there shall be developed in some organism such a 

 high degree of Self-Consciousness, that the physical seat in 

 which this spiritual function resides and operates, shall be 

 so controlled and integrated that it will be endowed with 

 sufficient strength to continue its organic activities after this 

 mortal coil shall have been shuffled off." 



The student is left to draw his own conclusions, but there 

 can be no doubt as to the settled ideas of Mr. Frank, when 

 he writes as follows: 



"Nowhere in the universe is there a space so minute as 

 not to be occupied by material substance ; and likewise, no- 

 where in the infinite is there an infinitesimal point of space 

 or an instant of time, in which there does not inhere the princi- 

 ple of life. 



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