THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 7 1 



which, if I may so use the term, is miscalled death — the connecting 

 link between this and a future state of existence. A recent writer 

 in a scientific journal says : " On earth we have no veritable death, 

 we have only change of form and condition." What we call a dead 

 body is not dead — an Egyptian mummy even tries hard to attain a 

 real death in vain, but it corrupts, it decays. Corruption is a 

 force — a potent agent, the harbinger of life to come. Assimilated 

 with the elements of which it was composed, the organic matter of 

 a dead body is absorbed and reproduced, we cannot tell when or 

 where, for one form of matter is continually takifig the place of 

 another in everything. Animal and vegetable remains are changed, 

 and again become part of the earth of which they were composed. 

 During life the body is continually changing ; death is only a loss 

 of consciousness and a cessation of action in the intellectual and 

 sentient being ; it is not a loss of existence, for not a particle of 

 matter ever ceases to exist, but it is the change — the transition 

 state — which the body must undergo previous to its being created 

 anew into other forms of existence. I speak here simply from a 

 scientific view apart from a doctrinal one ; the future of the soul is 

 a subject for other hands and another place than this, but even of 

 that future, death is still a connecting link between the sphere we 

 now inhabit and some other region far away, of whicji the mind of 

 man can form no conception. 



The idea of looking on death as only a change, is thus beauti- 

 fully expressed by Lord Lytton : 



' ' There is no death ; the dust we tread 



Shall change beneath the summer showers 



To golden grain or mellow fruit 



Or rainbow tinted flowers. 



There is no death ; an Angel form 



Walks o'er the earth with silent tread, 



He bears our best loved things away, 



And then we call them dead. 



He leaves our hearts all desolate, 



He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers ; 



Transplanted into bliss, they now 



Adorn immortal bowers. 



Born to that undying life, 



They leave us but to come again, 



With joy we welcome them the same, 



Except their sin and pain ; 



