Life in other worlds...

Front matter

LIBRARY Ur LUNbRtdb.

UNITED STATES OF A3IERICA.

INCLUDING A BRIEF STATEMENT

Preface

The following pages were written at intervals, between professional engagements, and not originally intended for publication. Having, however, derived much pleasure and comfort in tracing the designing hand of an infinitely wise and almighty Creator in the land prepared for our race, and then looking out upon the great universe containing millions of worlds, all under the same great Father's care, I have thought others might also take an interest in looking at more worlds than one.

For want of space in this volume I have been compelled to abridge my chapters and give only outline thoughts on the different subjects named, and hence there is frequently an abrupt breaking-off, or apparent want of connection between different subjects.

Some theologians and scientists will quite likely take exceptions to some of the ideas advanced ; but as this is a world of conflicting opinions as well as conflicting powers, and complete harmony will only follow upon the acquisition of a higher degree of knowledge than

4 PREFACE.

has yet fallen to the lot of mortals in our present state, we are all liable to err in opinions where we lack positive proof; and if, in an earnest search after truth, I have fallen into errors, these errors will become subject-matter for honest criticism, and may be set down with the numerous other mistakes made by men wiser and more learned than the writer of these sketches claims to be.

By permission I have added three sermons — as an appendix — closely connected with the subjects treated in this volume. These sermons were preached in the regular course in the Centenary M. E. Church, in the city of Chicago, by Rev. H. W. Thomas, D. D., and published in the Chicago Times. They are presented here just as they were delivered from the pulpit.

I am indebted to the beautiful poem, An Epic of the Starry Heaven, by Thomas L. Harris, for a number of the poetic quotations in this work.

And now, with a hope that some one who will read these pages will find encouragement for a union in the great future with friends that have gone before, as well as for an acquaintance with the millions of happy spirits who have passed through the vale of sorrow to their final home, I submit this work to a generous public.

Adam Miller.

Chicago, June, 1878.

Life in Other Worlds.

Chapter I. The Origin, Progress And Perpetuation Of Life

No created and dependent being can travel back through the ages and define the period when an impulse was first given to material organized forms and the phenomena of motion, with all the other attributes of life imparted to them. Behind, and anterior to all living things, is the great first cause of all life. In this direction, our mightiest efforts soon reach their utmost boundaries. The finite cannot grasp the infinite ; neither can he trace the living stream to its fountain-head, and find the origin of all existing things. Materialism seeks causation in some indefinable force, and unfoldment, and progress in evolution. But whence is this force derived, which propels material and living entities out of nothing ? Does it exist independently in the universe, and is it possessed of infinite power ? If so, then this may be that divine and intelligent power we are contending for. If it is mere force, without intelligence, then we cannot account for the harmony in nature. The advocates of evolution do not deny some absolute creations — epochs of creative power producing the lower orders out of which higher types are evolved. If it is admitted that there have been several distinct creations, why not more ? Why not distinct creations for especial epochs ? If one class or one type of existences required a creative process, why not the same for every form of existence ? Life, in combination with matter, evinces intelligence as a cause; and as the union of matter with spirit is beyond the comprehension of finite beings, and implies infinite power and intelligence, we descend from a higher to a lower power when we claim for evolution that which belongs to the province of especial creation. The argument runs thus : With evolutionists, there is a creative power somewhere, and, somehow, there have been creations of low and imperfect types of life ; and then an inferior power produces from these lower creations a higher and entirely different form of life. It is not the unfoldment and perfection of* existing types, but the production of new types out of old ones, that evolutionists contend for. The theory of life evolving from the molecule, and from it through the various stages, until the fully-developed man is produced, is mentioned from the fact that there are, naturally, these intermediate steps until perfect manhood is reached.

That the life of man, in all his dignity, and highest and best estate, is a progress from minute life germs to his full development, is admitted ; but not any more

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE.

so now than in his original constitution ; and we have no evidence that he was ever in any other form than human, so far as his essential existence is concerned, save that the atoms of which his material bodyis formed may have existed in other living forms ; but, while so organized, there was no part of the present structure, nor intelligence in any of those living forms, through which this matter may have passed. Human life can only exist under certain peculiar conditions, and it is quite probable that the successive steps of creation which preceded human life on earth were so many steps in preparing those conditions where human life could find existence and support. But these preparatory processes were not those of evolving human beings from lower types. When the habitation was formed, and the elements of nature refined and arranged in their proper position and order, to make " the human form divine," then the breath of the Infinite Power made this noble structure the abode of essential man. If human beings came up through the slow process of evolution from these lower types, would not these have disappeared when man had been evolved out of them ? But we find no evidence of change nor progress in any of them. The baboons, apes, monkeys, chimpanzees, and all that class of animals, manifest the same dispositions through all historic time, without improvement in any of their habits or manner of life.

Darwin, in his " Descent of Man," traces our genealogy as follows :

" The early progenitors of man were, no doubt, covered with hair, both sexes having beards ; their ears were pointed and capable of movement, and their bodies were provided with a tail having the proper muscles. The foot was prehensible ; and our progenitors were aboriginal in their habits, frequenting some warm forest-clad land. The males were provided with formidable canine teeth, which served them as formidable weapons. At a still later period the progenitors of man must have been aquatic in their habits, for morphology plainly tells us that our lungs consist of a modified swim-bladder, which once served as a float."

In reply to this, Mr. Peebles says :

" Physical organization does not create the conscious soul ; brain does not secrete the intellect ; scientific discoveries and Miltonian poems are not bread and beef transmuted by chemical laws ; 'nothing and nobodies' are not on the way to intelligent men and women ; cold, inert phosphates cannot be developed into thought, nor a dead ox into a living epic, aflame with truth and beauty. In primitive man lay concealed future Bacons, Newtons, Humboldts and Emersons, just as orange groves lie hidden in the orange seeds that lie scattered about our yards."

Progress toward higher conditions is evident through the whole realm of nature but in the onward march toward completeness; repellent forces are often encountered, and, hence, we have periods of falling back

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 9

from higher to lower conditions, in organic life as well as in our social relations.

In these cycles of running up and running down of the same species of living organisms we have not the shadow of proof that one order of animals can pass into the other by evolution. All life may be traced to its germinal cells ; its progress is sustained by the same materials that contribute to the growth of all living organisms. Whatever of similarity there may appear in the germinal life cells of different animals to the advocates of the Darwinian theory of evolution, there is, undoubtedly, an impassable gulf between the life germ of man and that of the lower animals.

From the monad to the molecule, as well as from the minute life germs, there are certain fixed laws of reproduction established by infinite wisdom, moving in appointed orbits, up to a full development ; and we might as well allow that suns and planets could leave their orbits and revolve in other orbits, as to believe that the order of progressive development could be changed by evolution from lower animals so as to arrive at the lofty position occupied by man. Our microscope and chemistry may fail to detect the difference between the minute life germs of man and the lower animals, but the progress of inferior animals to the perfection of animal life and the unfoldment of man from helpless infancy to his high moral nature are two very different things.

The lower order of animals arrive at certain fixed boundaries, and over these they cannot pass. The birds, that now charm us with their music sang as sweetly in the bowers of Eden or the groves of primeval forests as they do now. They construct their nests and follow the laws of instinct without variation through all ages, and these unchanging characteristics are found in all other animals.

Pindarus, a Greek poet, born 522 years before Christ, said :

And the great laws of nature ne'er expire,

Unchanged the lion's valiant race remains,

And all his father's wiles the youthful fox retains.

In the progress of man's physical nature from infancy to manhood we have a typical representation of his moral progress to a higher civilization.

But history furnishes many melancholy examples of retrocession from a high civilization to rude barbarism. The finger of Time has written on the pages of history some fearful lessons of decay and death of national greatness. In the upward march the unfoldment is gradual, and is an outgrowth of man's necessities. At first he may be a Nimrod — a " mighty hunter," living by hunting and fishing and upon such fruits and nuts as he may find of a spontaneous growth. From these 1ow t conditions of social life the progress has been gradual; step by step he has gone up : first, to the care of domestic animals for food and their skins for clothing ; the next steps are, the cultivation of the soil, the construction of dwelling places, the use of agricultural implements, and the manufacturing of

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 11

wearing apparel, from the coarse to the fine. Communities grow into cities, and cities and countries into empires, or republics.

These, in the cycle of years, have again run down to low conditions, and the halls of learning and arts and sciences have been abandoned — and the once proud cities, with their teeming thousands, have been laid in ruin, their places forgotten and their names only known in history, which is often shrouded in doubt and obscurity. Have we not a counterpart of this coming up and running down in lower forms of life ? " Where is the dust that was not once alive?" New life is nourished and sustained by the atoms that were once habitations of living organisms.

Life germs are found everywhere : in air, and earth, and water. In this all-pervading life principle we are irresistibly forced to recognize the direct act of infinite creative energy, and have no evidence that by spontaneous generation living organisms are produced.

The experiments hitherto made with the most refined apparatus have failed to detect germs of living organisms when the Creator had not planted that life germ.

While we find improved varieties of the same species, we can detect no evidence of the production of new species. The acorn produces the oak tree, and the apple seed the apple tree and fruit, but the kind of tree and fruit depends on certain conditions, such as soil, cultivation, climate, etc. The progress to maturity and the retrogression to primitive elements, in longer or shorter periods, appear to be governed by some law of compensation, perhaps not fully understood by scientists. There appears to be an ebbing as well as a flowing tide in the struggle of all living things, from lower to higher conditions, and if the falling back does not sink life to the level of the starting point, if something is gained with every upward effort, there is encouragement to hope that in every ebbing and flowing tide something has been gained for life — some firmer foot-hold has been planted upon stronger foundations. There will finally be an unfoldment and outgrowth from this conflict between decay and death and life and progress that shall lift all life to a higher plane and give every intelligent being grander conceptions of the workings of the infinite plan of bringing a new and higher form of life out of decay and death.

We will finally learn this great lesson, that what we call death, and our ideas of sadness connected with the thought of death, is not destruction — not the terrible spectre that haunted our imagination from our earliest recollection — but a mere falling back to rise again, a going down to come up again, a laying off of old garments to be clothed in new and brighter ones. We die, but, as Dr. Bonar says,

We but die to live.

It is from death we 're flying,

Forever lives our life ;

For us there is no dying.

We die but as the Spring bud dies,

In Summer's golden glow to rise ;

These be our days of April bloom.

Our July is beyond the tomb.

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. ■ 13

Schiller gives us a beautiful analogy of the new life from nature when he says:

" When the measured dance of the hours brings back the happy smile of spring the buried dead is born again in the life-glance of the sun. The germs which perished to the eye within the cold breast of the earth spring up with joy in the bright realm of day."

Over all this changing world there presides an all-pervading, an all-controlling and changeless life-sustaining power, under whose direction innumerable life-sustaining forces are kept in perpetual motion.

Among these we have the superior and the subordinate. The premium mobile of this life force is the sun — the great central heart of our solar system — and under its throbbing pulse the multiplied forces of nature work with marvelous harmony and regularity for the accomplishment of nature's vast designs.

" There is no such thing as death —

In Nature nothing dies ; From each sad remnant of decay

Some forms of life arise.

The little leaf that falls,

All brown and sere, to earth, Ere long will mingle with the buds

That give the flower its birth."

Chapter II

Paradise was first called "a garden eastward in Eden," said by Moses to have been planted by the Lord for the accommodation of the first human pair, according to one Bible chronology. Whether there was actually and literally a place thus set apart, with all the pleasures, beauties and delights ascribed to the ancient paradise, has been a matter of doubt with some who, notwithstanding, take the Bible as a revelation from God, but give many of its narratives a symbolical meaning. The word Eden signifies pleasure, or delight ; hence, some have concluded that nothing more is intended than a pleasant home or habitation, without any fixed locality. There are, however, other passages of Scripture that appear to give it a geographical locality, such as, " Cain dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden." — Gen., iv. 8. This place is also referred to in II. Kings, xix. 12 ; again in Ezekiel, xxvii. 23. The merchants of Eden are spoken of as dealing in spices, precious stones and

PARADISE, THE HOME OF OUR ANCESTORS. 15

gold. In Amos, i. 5, the scepter of the house of Eden is spoken of, and from the connection of this name with other names that frequently occur in the Bible it is quite likely that it was the name of a province, or country, without any reference to the ancient home of our race.

As a matter of history, it is curious to notice the different opinions that have been entertained in reference to the location of Eden, or the ancient paradise. There is scarcely a place conceivable where the fancies of men in different ages have not located paradise. Dr. Adam Clarke, the great commentator, says: " Some place it in the third heaven, others in the fourth ; some within the orbit of the moon, others in the moon itself; some in the middle regions of the air, or beyond the earth's attraction ; some on the earth, others under the earth, and others within the earth ; some have fixed it in the north pole, others in the south ; some in Tartary, some in China ; some on the borders of the Ganges, and some in the Island of Ceylon ; some in Armenia, others in Africa, under the equator ; some in Mesopotamia, others in Syria, Persia, Arabia, Babylon and in Palestine." Others, again, have contended that it never did exist, and that the whole account is to be spiritually understood. There are many who now believe with the ancients, that there was a literal paradise, such as Moses gives an account of, under the name of Garden of Eden. Others give it a spiritual or symbolical meaning. One thing is certain, with all the uncertainties surrounding this question of location : It is certain our race had an origin in something higher than a mere fortuitous aggregation of material substances, or evolution from lower types of animals originating in indefinable monads or etherial molecules.

Whatever the materialistic tendencies of modern philosophy may be with regard to the origin of all things, they cannot get away from the idea of an especial creation and an Almighty Creator. But the tendency is to push the creative act, as well as the Creator's power, into the background as far as possible; and strong and persistent efforts are made to prove that, if some things were primarily created, they were but comparatively insignificant forms, out of which wondrous worlds have been evolved by laws governing the material universe, and that intelligence and all the faculties of the human soul have their origin in some low type of life which came from some place unknown to the academies of science. They would have us believe that the soul of man, glowing with hopes and high aspirations, and inward and anxious longings for a future life, is nothing but an outgrowth from transmuted bread and meat, and cabbage and beans. The doctrine of spontaneous generation is given up by Prof. Tyndall, after several hundreds of experiments. All efforts to evolve life where creative power had not first placed life germs have failed; and every candid mind must admit a divine origin to life in any form, and especially to that higher form found in human organisms, manifesting itself in human intelligence.

PARADISE, THE HOME OF OUR ANCESTORS. 17

Man, then, had a creator, and that creator provided a home for man in his primitive state. That the place with its surroundings was pleasant and adapted to man's condition may reasonably be supposed. That he was made capable of progressing out of lower into higher conditions is in accordance with the law of progression everywhere, and will scarcely be doubted. With intelligence we naturally associate a power to choose between right and wrong ; and upon this follows man's accountability to a higher law-making power; and out of this comes the natural sequence of punishment for transgression and rewards for obedience. Moses, in his account of primitive man, gives a brief sketch of a rebellion, upon which follows a prophesy of his restoration and final elevation to a higher condition than that of the ancient paradise. Whatever of mystery and myths have surrounded the ancient home of our race, where the first man took the first woman by the hand and they commenced with united hand and heart the journey of life, there is something pleasant to the poetic soul in the name of paradise. It is to us an emblem of everything that ia beautiful and lovely, and points the weary traveler to the celestial abodes

" Beyond the frost chain and the fever ; Beyond the rock waste and the river."

It is sad to think that the natural tendency in the

human mind to superstitious ideas in things connected

with our spiritual nature has wrought fearful pictures

out of this place of so many lovely associations.

Mr. Blake, in his " Legendary Worlds of the Middle Ages," says : " The famous knight, John of Mandeville, gravely wrote as follows: 'No mortal can go to or approach this paradise. By land no one can go there, on account of savage beasts which are in the desert, and because of mountains and rocks that cannot be passed over, and dark places without number. Nor can one go there any better by sea ; the water rushes so wildly, it comes in so great waves, that no vessel dare sail against them. The water is so rapid, and makes so great a noise and tempest, that no one can hear, however loud he is spoken to. And so, when some great men with good courage have attempted several times to go by the river to paradise, in large companies, they have never been able to accomplish their journey. On the contrary, many have died with fatigue in swimming against the watery waves. Many others have become blind, others have become deaf by the noise of the water, and others have been suffocated and lost in the waves, so that no mortal man can approach it except by the special grace of God.' "

The history of the middle ages abounds with legends of the wildest as well as widely different characters, and many of the honest-hearted people believed these things as firmly as they believed any truth pertaining to their future welfare. Frequent attempts have been made to find the ancient home of our race ; among them we will notice the one recorded by Mr. Blake :

" The most curious and interesting of all attempts to discover the situation of paradise was that made half unconsciously by Columbus when he first found the American shore.

" In his third voyage, when for the first time he reached the main land, he was persuaded not only that he had arrived at the extremity of Asia, but that he could not be far from the position of paradise. The Orinoco seemed to be one of those four great rivers which, according to tradition, came out of the garden inhabited by our first parents, and his hopes were supported by the fragrant breezes that blew from the beautiful forests on its banks. This, he thought, was but the entrance to the celestial dwelling-place, and if he had dared — if a religious fear had not held back him who had risked everything amidst the elements amongst men, he would have liked to push forward to where he might hope to find the celestial boundaries of the world, and, a little further, to have bathed his eyes, with profound humility, in the light of the flaming swords which were wielded by two seraphim before the gate of Eden.

"He thus expresses himself on this subject in his letter to one of the monarchs of Spain, dated Hayti, October, 1498 : ' The Holy Scriptures attest that the Lord created paradise, and placed in it the tree of life, and made the four great rivers of the earth to pass out of it, the Ganges of India, the Tigris, the Euphrates, (passing from the mountains to form Mesopotamia, and ending in Persia,) and the Nile, which rises in Ethiopia and goes to the Sea of Alexander. I cannot, nor have been ever able to find in the books of the Latins or Greeks anything authentic on the site of this terrestrial paradise, nor do I see anything more certain in the maps of the world. Some place it at the source of the Nile, in Ethiopia; but the travelers who have passed through those countries have not found either in the mildness of the climate or in the elevation of the site towards heaven anything that could lead to the presumption that paradise was there, and that the waters of the deluge were unable to reach it or cover it. Several pagans have written for the purpose of proving it was in the Fortunate Isles, which are the Canaries ; St. Isadore, Bede and Strabo, St. Ambrosius, Scotus and all judicious theologians affirm with one accord that paradise was in the East. It is from thence only that the enormous quantity of water can come, seeing that the course of the rivers is extremely long ; and these waters (of paradise) arrive here, where I am, and form a lake. There are great signs here of the neighborhood of the terrestrial paradise, for the site is entirely conformable to the opinion of the saints and judicious theologians. The climate is of admirable mildness. I believe that if I passed beneath the equinoctial line, and arrived at the highest point of which I have spoken, I should find a milder temperature and a change in the stars and the waters; not that I believe that the point where the greatest height is situated is navigable, or even that there is water there, or that one

PARADISE, THE HOME OF OUR ANCESTORS. 21

could reach it, but I am convinced that there is the terrestrial paradise, where no one can come except by the will of God.'

" In the opinion of this illustrious navigator, the earth had the form of a pear, and its surface kept rising toward the east, indicated by the point of the fruit. It was there that he supposed might be found the garden where ancient tradition imagined the creation of the first human couple was accomplished.

" We can scarcely think without astonishment of the great amount of darkness that obscured scientific knowledge when this great man appeared on the scene of the world, nor of the rapidity with which the obscurity and vagueness of ideas were dissipated almost immediately after his marvelous discoveries.' Scarcely had a half century elapsed after his death, than all the geographical fables of the middle ages did no more than excite smiles of incredulity, although during his life the universal opinion was not much advanced upon the times of the famous knight, John of Mandeville," as mentioned above.

These legends only show the wonderful fertility oi the human mind under the influence of superstition, and the tenacity with which it clings to traditions and fables, as if they were essential to its religious enjoyments here and happiness hereafter. Discoveries in science have done much toward sifting the chaff from the wheat, and extremists in the scientific world are now disposed to throw aside the wheat because it was once mixed with chaff. We should not reject sublime truths because they have been mixed with errors by the ignorance and superstitions of men. Astronomy is not rejected on account of its former connections with the superstitions of astrology or the errors of the early astronomers. Chemistry is no less valuable, in all its wonderful operations and transformations, on account of its former connection with the vagaries and errors of alchemy. So the teachings of the Bible, in reference to man's moral relations to the Creator, are none the less true because superstitious and ignorant men have mixed with them legends and fables of their own invention, and have given such interpretations as are calculated to repel and discourage the honest seeker for truth. The Bible needs science to brush away the chaff of error and the fogs and mists of superstition, and science needs the teachings of the Bible to aid it in building lighthouses and towers on the coasts of the stormy ocean of life, over which we are moving toward the shores of a brighter world and a higher destiny.

Chapter III. Cosmos And The Bible In Harmony

The change of cosmography produced by science does not conflict with the teachings of the Bible in reference to the creation of all things, notwithstanding the progress of knowledge, during the past two hundred years, has produced a great change in the religious beliefs in reference to the structure of the universe and the exegeses of theologians in biblical cosmography-

The discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, and others,

which caused great alarm to the expounders of the Bible, are now found to be harmless in their results, and in no manner to come in conflict with the teachings of the Divine Revelation. This alarm at new discoveries arose from the mistaken apprehension that the Bible, as a revelation from God, should be regarded as a critical treatise on the cosmos of the universe, and that every new discovery of a purely scientific character should be sustained by its direct teaching and should stand or fall bv its decisions.