Sacred Dust

Sacred Dust. BY AUBRAY PARKER. The "dust of the departed" has been held as sacred in nearly all ages since the world began. Gigantic mausoleums began to be erected, for the repose of the dead, long before the Christian era. Indeed, the pyramids of Egypt speak, with very ancient voice, of the sacredness of the bodies of the departed great. That the body of man is sacred, living or dead, no reasoning being can doubt. To sit down and think upon its construction and mechanism, is to become elevated above all that is trivial — to become absorbed for a time, as it were, in the sublime realities of God's creation. It is the object of this little article to prove not only the sacredness of the body of man, which the Lord God "formed from the dust of the ground," but also of the dust of the whole creation, which shows forth the handiwork of God. In the second chapter of the Book of Moses, in the Pearl of Great Price, are these words: And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I reveal unto you concerning this Heaven and this Earth; write the words which I speak. I am the Beginning and the End, the Almighty God; by mine Only Begotten I created these things, yea, in the beginning I created the heaven, and the earth upon which thou standest. From this revelation we learn that God created this earth upon which we stand. And further, that he created everything that is upon, within, above and beneath the earth; in short, the whole of creation is of his own design and workmanship. He is the Author of this wondrous world and its many inhabitants. God

SACRED DUST. 57 the Father, by his Only Begotten, created the beasts of the earth and the plants of the field, hence the dust of which they are made is sacred. It is sacred, and cannot be brought to naught. The virgin lily bends its head, And blends its dust with lilies dead, Dust that shall live in days to be, And still retain its chastity. The vestment that to earth doth fall, Again shall be a lily tall; For nothing lives or dies in vain, All things die to live again. There are, uidoubtedly, different grades of creation. God has endowed the body of man with an intelligence capable of evolving to perfection, like unto his own. Hence, man is his highest crea- tion, and has dominion over all the beasts of the field. The most uncouth human on the face of the globe may be called a god in embryo; but, just as all seed does not produce fruit, even so it is that all men will not attain unto godhood. All dust that has been raised up to hold a human soul is placed upon the highest pinnacle of God's creation, and is capable of responding to that invitation issued by the Savior of mankind, viz., "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." When we think of the many holy men we have known, who have lived, died and gone to dust, we ask ourselves, "Is theirs not sacred dust? sunken temples, shrines of worship, awaiting the trump of Gabriel, that they might rise again, sublime celestial and incapable of decay?" "Solomon and all his glory has gone down to death, and the winter winds moan over his dust." — Ichabod. So even is it, "Man being born of woman, has but a short time to live." He is the fruit of that eternity gone before him, living in the day that now is. The natural man feels that he is born to perform, and that he does from the time of his access to the time of his egression from this world of potter's clay. He manipulates nature in order to perfect his art. He, perchance, is crowned with laurel, for in

58 IMPR0VEMEN1 ERA. that his creations are draped in beauty. Yet, after all, the innate germ of decay is in them, laurel and all; yea, they of ttime moulder in the making. So they pass, as all mundane creations must pass. They all must, as Shakespeare has said with grim humor, "as chimney-sweepers come to dust." What wouldst thou, 0 man, That thou shouldst be, For all eternity ? An eternal j^^em Moulden in a crucible of'dust? Mystic crucible ! Made like High God, Made out of earth's vernal sod: A shrine of worship, Once fit for cherubim. Or God's own holy soul. Now vitiated by Satan's blight; Now seest dim heaven in earth thro' curtained light' The body of man is of ineffable beauty. How wonderful its constitution — the binding together of veins and nerves, of bones and sinews ! "Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God," sings Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The earth is of dust — is it not then sacred? Earth is surmounted with an altar cloth of blue, bespangled with stars of silver, and upon it rests a chalice of gold, from which flows light and beauty into the lap of Nature. All dust, methinks, is sacred; each grain belongs to God. Gateshead, England.