Looking Back: An AutobiographyRichardson, Merrick Abner
History
Looking Back: An Autobiography
Richardson, Merrick Abner
Richardson, Merrick Abner, 1841-
"Rose Lind" is an assumed exposure of the far-reaching evil influences
of the grain gamblers on the Chicago Board of Trade.
"Eight Days Out" is a burlesque on Phillip, on my visit to the Soo.
"Mina Faust" is a long love story.
"Chicago's Black Sheep" is a figurative illustration of the criminal
dens of Chicago, and the work of the Salvation Army.
"Personality of the Soul" is a review of the prevailing religion, as I
found them in my extensive travels.
"Twilight Reflections" is an accumulation of indications that mineral,
vegetable and animal existence are the direct result of scheming and
are being held or driven by an incomprehensible will power. Also, that
the animal, especially man, possesses slight creative power.
Somehow, I cannot think of the soul as something evolving from nothing,
or as beginning its existence with the formation of the body, but
rather as descending to or ascending from former existence.
Pre-existence is in harmony with the teachings of Jesus, reason
and eternal life. The animated body comes into existence through
transformation from pre-existence. If that quality, to present, to
consider, to decide, exists it must be a transformation of some kind of
pre-existence. To affirm that God gave or created does not imply that
He gave or created from that which He did not have.
I will not question the Divine Power or intelligence, but I challenge
man to produce an indication of existence only as transformation or
evolution from existence. The only way to blot out memory is through
unconsciousness, and we know it does not do it. Eternal life is for
all, but souls, even in this life, often drift far apart.
The unfathomable, incomprehensible, unthinkable dark pocket of
forgetfullness conceals memory but it does not annihilate it. If time
admits of no before, space of no beyond and matter of no annihilation,
then the law of continuity is established; and if we do now live, we
have lived and will live forever. Eternal life must include the past as
well as the future. Life from God is a declaration of pre-existence.
Existence beginning at conception or birth assumes something evolving
from nothing.
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS
In 1898, having nothing to detain me and knowing that my son Arthur
could conduct my business better than I could, I decided to take an
extensive tour around the world, taking as much time as I pleased in
visiting the interior of countries to study the people in their natural
condition, both physically and mentally.
When our boat passed through the Golden Gate into the open Pacific
a wild storm was whistling down the coast from Alaska, which caused
our steamer to roll and plunge worse than anything I have ever since
experienced. For five days neither sun or stars appeared, and when we
got our reckoning we were five hundred miles out of our course.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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