^ •** & °u * ^ .!.»•. \{> 4? °* % -*V .. V^'V BEYOND THE GRAVE BEING THREE LECTURES BEFORE CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY IN 1878, PAPERS ON RECOGNITION IN THE FUTURE STATE, AND OTHER ADDENDA. BY BISHOP RANDOLPH S. FOSTER, Of the Methodist Episcopal Church. fc^ > 187P. NEWYORK: PHILLIPS & HUNT. CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 1879. ' ft Copyright 1879, by PHILLIPS & HUNT, New York. The Library of Congress WASHINGTON OOTsTTEIsrTS. LECTURE I. Man a Spiritual Being Page 13 The subject to be considered— Possible methods of treatment— The method adopted— Should difficulties be stated ?— Ground of belief that they should— The right way of meeting difficulties— Evils of exaggeration— The right of dissent— Beliefs have no value simply as such — Two questions— Comprehen- sion of the phrase, "Beyond the grave"— Life after death not known— "What cannot be known may, nevertheless, be believed— Causes of differences of belief— The debate inevitable and interminable— On the subject, two classes of views— Varieties in first class— Mixed variety— Varieties under second class — Theory espoused and defended — The crucial question, Is man a spir- itual being ?— Effect on the whole question of the discovery that man is simply an organism of matter— First great mistake— Additional difficulty- Sources of proof— First possible source— Second possible source— Both sources claimed— First kind of proof examined— Man a spirit shrined in a body— Em- barrassments removed— Spirit possesses tbe personal endowments— Differences between the shrine and its occupant— Powerlessness of the organism— Su- premacy of the spirit— His power on the instrument limited— The body simply instrumental— Instinctive impulses of the nature of desires, may precede think- ing, but they are not properly personal acts— Proof that the body is simply in- strumental—Proof of the general proposition that spirit is a real and discrete substance — Spirit a thought factor— Thought underlies every organism— Illus- tration— Is thought a result of organization ?— Results of human thought— Re- sults of God's thought— Certainty that all organisms had a beginning— Proof that the present order cannot be eternal— Illustration from the structure and motions of the earth— Illustration from grain— Illustration from man— No ag- gregate of beginning can reach the unbegun— An eternal cause must underlie the order, which is not itself of the order— The cause must be a thinker— The cause must have more essential being than the effect— The proof that man is a spirit— Geological proof— The spirit seen not directly, but by reflection in the face— The spirit known by consciousness— The spirit seen in the machine— The body vanishes, the spirit abides— Illustration of the permanence of the con- O CONTENTS. scious self— The picture gallery of memory a spirit hold— Definition of spirit— The self-conscious ego a unit— The self a free self-centered power— The proof from Scripture. LECTURE II. Man a Spiritual Being Page 59 Does the spirit survive the body?— No proof that death is destructive of the person— No proof that the body is necessary to the conscious activity of the spirit— Illustration— May not the body be, in many respects, a clog to the spir- it ?— Even now the spirit lives its highest life without sensation— Explanation asked for— Illustration— Lord Brougham's argument for a separate existence of the soul— The mind conscious of its own existence, though separated from the body— Death destroys the organism of man— The departure of the soul im- perceptible to the senses— Future immortal existence not a matter of knowl- edge—Present conscious existence gives probability of continued existence — First proof of immortality— Nothing once created ever reduced to non- existence— The electric telegraph— Second argument— Nature of the soul — Unfolding of the soul— Unlimited power of the soul, or capacity for endless development— Illustration— Third argument— Instincts of the soul— Conscience — Fourth argument— The divine character reauires immortality— First, his love — Justice — Fifth argument— Universal belief in immortality— Whence came the belief ? A beautiful illustration— Summary of preceding points. LECTURE III. Man a Spiritual Being Page 109 Second source of proof, revelation— The Scriptures teach the doctrine of man's immortality— The Bible God's testimony— How we are affected when we come to the holy volume — Fullness of the deliverance — The matchless Teacher dies and rises again— The fact of future life being established, darkness still hangs over the subject— First reason for the obscurity— Second reason for the obscurity — Third reason for the obscurity— Are all immortal ?— Power of the suggestion that at least the finally wicked perish out of existence— The attempt to prove that the wicked will cease to exist : its source— Appeal to the Script- ures in support of the utter extirpation of the wicked— The word rendered soul —Rule to determine the meaning of words of more meanings than one — Dr. George Bush's enumeration and classification of the words rendered "soul" and " spirit " — Passages which seem to represent death as overthrow of being —Such an interpretation not accordant with the true sense of Scripture theory of the unconscious state of the dead— The theory repugnant to reason — The Scriptures teach the dead are conscious— Distinction between the body of the person and the person itself— Penalty not annihilation— Scriptures which rep- CONTENTS. J resent that eternal life is result of faith — The doctrine is unwelcome and hor- rific—But probably true— The doctrine must he accepted, painful though it be — Tbe second point— Sleep of the soul— The intermediate state— Is the soul clothed during the intermediate state ?— Where do souls dwell during the in- termediate state ?— The various stages of human existence intimate continu- ally enlarged powers— How do souls employ themselves during the interval between death and the great judgment ?— Man not designed to be immortal iu the body given to him at creation— What are the supposable uses of bodies in the next life ?— New ends of bodies in the future life — Resurrection of the man— Various theories of the resurrection considered. The Doctrine op Recognition in a Future Life -Interest of the subject —Assumption that the dead recognize each other in that future life — Relations of earth not renewed there— Recollections of the earthly life not obliterated — Death merely the removal, not destruction, of the soul — The departed will exist in a social state— Man's nature teaches this— Spirits are probably visible to each other— Scriptural argument for recognition in heaven. Appendix : Note A Page 229 " Note B 243 INTRODUCTION THE substance of what follows was delivered in several unwritten addresses before the " Chautau- qua Assembly," in 1878, and published in the "Assem- bly Daily Herald " at the time. So many have expressed a wish to have the thoughts in a more permanent form, that I have judged it best to revise them, and, with some additions, to send them to the wider public in an inexpensive book. Some few years since I furnished some magazine ar- ticles on "Recognition in the Future State." These were received with favor, and I have thought it proper to reproduce them here, with some enlargement. The subjects are so germane that the two discussions come into line and form a homogeneous whole, or complete- ness, which neither of them reaches alone. It is believed that such is the intrinsic importance of the subject, and such its interest to our affections and our religious faith, that it deserves more attention than it has received ; and the more so because of the mate- rializing tendencies of the times under the specious guise of science and philosophy. The presentation herein given is intended for the average reader; but I O IN TR OD UC TIO N. while it aims at a plain and intelligible style of treat- ment, level to the understanding of the unlearned, it also proposes thoroughness. Awarding due honor to the holy Scriptures, as the court of ultimate appeal and supreme authority, it gives reason fair play through- out. Authority is not once evoked to silence or answer an objection, or remove a difficulty, but only to furnish information to the understanding, and adduce new elements of knowledge to assist the reason in reaching its conclusions. The discussion is conducted on the theory that no doctrine, or phase of doctrine, can deserve faith, except on the ground that the reasons for accepting it are more convincing than any that can be adduced for rejecting it, and that every doctrine is open to fair and unreserved criticism. If, upon exam- ination, it cannot make good its claim, it ought not to be received ; but in every case the examination should be candid, painstaking, and thorough, without prejudice or passion, and especially so if the doctrine be im- portant in matters of practical moment. Many beliefs that have long passed unchallenged among the wisest and best people — that have gained universal sway, and that have the most powerful sym- pathies of mankind in their support — are now being called in question. However unpleasant the fact, it certainly is not a matter of just complaint. It is simply the result of that exercise of indefeasible rights of the mind of any age, which can never be abolished until men cease to value truth. Any doctrine which cannot endure the test of the most searching scrutiny should IN TROD UC TION. 1 1 be ruled out as unworthy of belief. By this we do not mean to affirm the extreme rationalistic ground, that no doctrine should be entertained which transcends comprehension. We are compelled to believe many things which our reason can neither originate, explain, nor comprehend ; but we can only be held under obli- gation to believe them when we are convinced of their truth, or because the reasons for accepting them are stronger than any which exist for rejecting them. Thus, when a doctrine which transcends comprehen- sion asks our faith, we guard the rights of reason by de- manding adequate evidence. No authority exists which has a right to dominate belief in violation of this princi- ple. The sufficient proof must exist in every case, and the individual reason has a right to demand that it be al- leged, and to withhold acceptance until it is furnished. Reason not only has this right, but the nature of the mind is such, that whenever it believes it assumes there is adequate evidence, and conceives itself as possessing it in some form or other, or is able to obtain it if occa- sion should require. No one supposes himself to be- lieve without grounds. The reflective reason, however, must always be the court of final appeal to decide whether the supposed evidence is real and adequate. There are doctrines which no stress of evidence could force upon a rational being — which no authority in the universe could make obligatory. Such is any doctrine which is self-contradictory, or any proposition which is contrary to any knowledge which we possess. Belief against knowledge is impossible. 12 INTRODUCTION. When a doctrine stands on authority of revelation — a " thus saith the Lord " — it must, first, be a doctrine that is not self-contradictory ; and, second, it must not con- tradict our knowledge. It may transcend our power of discovery or comprehension ; and after its deliverance it may be impossible to find any other reason for be- lieving it than that God says it. In that case it stands purely on authority — it is information furnished us by a Being who knows it to be true, and we simply submit our minds to his statement. But in this case our rea- son is not overslaughed. We still maintain the highest rationality when we demand, as a condition of our faith, the sufficient proof that it is the God of truth who an- nounces the doctrine. Let this proof be furnished, and, by a law of the highest reason, we are compelled to be- lieve — the strongest faith becomes the purest rational- ity. No greater proof can exist than a " thus saith the Lord " — not even our direct cognition ; but we must know that it is a "thus saith the Lord." And we in- tuitively know that between a " thus saith the Lord " and our immediate cognition there never will or can be contradiction. BEYOND THE GRAVE LECTURE I. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 'THHE subject I am to treat is, " Life beyond the 4- grave." There are three possible methods of conducting the discussion. These are, First : To assume every thing, and give wing to imagination and feeling. Second : To treat it exegetically, as purely a doctrine of revelation. Third : To submit it to the reason, and examine it in the light of all the facts bearing upon it which lie within the circle of our intelligence. The grand- eur and obscurity of the subject invite to the first ; reverence for the Scriptures and Christian impulse indicate the second ; the claims of intelligence, and the deeper wants of reason and the soul, call for the third. Aiming at the best and most perma- nent results, we adopt the third method. This will require us to bring to view all the objections which have been alleged against the doctrine we shall as- sert and defend, and which you believe and hold sacred. 14 BEYOND THE GRAVE. There are many who are impatient of objections to their cherished beliefs. The intimation of them grates harshly upon their sensibilities — irritates them. There are some excellent people who think that the Christian teacher, in treating Christian doctrines, has nothing to do with difficulties of the reason ; that he should never allude to or attempt to answer them ; that his simple function is, to an- nounce the mind of the Spirit, as he finds it in the word. It is assumed, that to notice a difficulty, is to create one in many minds. There is some truth in this; but it does not follow that the teacher should, therefore, utterly ignore the existence of difficulties, or that he should dismiss them as trivial, or answer them by denouncing those who are affected by them. There is but one way for him who aspires to be a teacher and conservator of right doctrines, and who shall deserve the respect and confidence of those to whom he may speak ; and that is, to fully inform himself of whatever may be said or thought against his teachings, and then with honest candor to exam- ine and refute the objections, or to acknowledge that he cannot. He must allow the objection fair play; must resort to no tricks, or evasions, or sophistries. If then he can show that despite all objections the reason is clearly in favor of his view, he deserves to win; otherwise, not. There is no other just ground on which he may push his views. He must be willing to challenge scrutiny, and not wince when MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. I 5 it is severe. It is an unsafe condition of mind even to desire to make a case seem stronger than it really is. All exaggeration as to the strength of one side or weakness of another is ill-judged, and, in the end, mischievous. The mind demands fairness as its highest right. He who would, for the sake of triumph, or for any other object, impose an insuffi- cient reason on the minds he addresses deserves no hearing. The just suspicion that he would take advantage of credulity or affection, or that he would, unwatched, treat with light respect the claims of reason, should render him unfit to address reasonable men. The highest interests of humanity require that we should hold forever sacred the right of dissent, and that it is even better to doubt than to assent, when the proof is not sufficient. It is only thus that any belief can be known to represent probable truth, and become of value. The supreme want of the mind is truth. Doctrines or beliefs have no value simply as such. They acquire their only value from their truth. It is, therefore, the one business of the teacher to inculcate truth, and to furnish the evi- dence that what he teaches is truth. " Life beyond the grave!" We are at once aware that the subject is one of great intrinsic interest, though naturally of almost impenetrable obscurity. The grave bounds our vision. How shall we find out any thing which lies beyond ? Can we ever know that there is any life beyond? At the an- ID BEYOND THE GRAVE. nouncement of the subject immediately two ques- tions meet us and formulate the discussion : — i. What evidence is there that life transcends the grave — that death is not overthrow? 2. What are the probable characteristics of life beyond the grave ? These natural divisions deter- mine our method. Beyond the grave may be taken in a wider or more restricted sense ; may open the question as to the whole realm of life in the invisible world ; or may be limited to the simple question, What comes to us after death ? Does the obverse side of the grave open into the spiritual world, and what is it like? or, simply, do we pass through the grave into a continued life, and what is it like? We must confine our discussion to the second, and more re- stricted aspect of the subject. But, as to either aspect, our immediate consciousness is, that we are attempting to penetrate a terra incognita — a region of darkness — where we must feel our way tenta- tively, and by slow and difficult movement. Does death end all? We answer unhesitatingly, unwav- eringly, No. The answer represents our belief, not our knowledge. However it may awaken surprise,* truth demands that we should make the confession * I have been informed that both the religious and secular press, and many well-meaning people, ministers and laymen, have ex- pressed great astonishment and some feeling at this statement. I can hardly say that I am surprised at it : and yet a little reflection would have sufficed to convince them of its exact truth. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1? that we do not know that death does not end all. Nor does any man know that it does. If it were given to men on the earth to know, that would be the end of uncertainty, or even questioning. We do not know ; therefore we are liable to have mis- givings, doubts, and fears. There is not a single fact within our reach that furnishes us absolute knowl- edge. We have neither sense nor mental vision of man after he dies. He does not again appear within the range of our faculties. We do not find him. Where he is, or that he is at all, is absolutely un- known to us. Our consciousness is silent on the subject. The dead do not come back to us, and we are not able to go to them. This, without doubt, is the common experience of humanity. If there are any who imagine that they know, we are not anxious to dispossess them of the pleasing delusion — it cannot harm them. Having conceded that there is no absolute knowl- edge in the premises, pro or con, we now affirm that we find it quite impossible for us to doubt. The strength of the belief is unquestionably instinctive, but this only points to its probable truth. That which we now seek to find out is this : Since we have no means of absolute knowledge, what may we rationally believe? Are there facts which ought to determine our beliefs one way or the other? Let us not fall into the dangerous fallacy, that since knowledge is impossible, inquiry is Useless. 1 8 BEYOND THE GRAVE. There is a truth. Either man does survive death, or he does not. If he does, we ought to believe it, since not to believe it is not only to be in error, but is to darken our lives with despair when they ought to be bright with hope ; is to withdraw from us influences which we need amid the temptations and sorrows of this state. To believe the truth, or have truth in our beliefs, is quite as important as to know the truth ; and it is as much a duty to regulate our beliefs according to reason, as it is to attain to knowledge of the knowable. The duty to know applies to one class of subjects, and the duty to believe to another; and the duty is equally imperative in both cases. In regard to matters of which absolute knowledge is impossible, or does not exist, there will probably arise differences of belief. This results from per- fectly natural causes. The mind will, when it by any means becomes informed of a subject, adopt some view or opinion about it if it awakens the slightest interest. Difference of faculty, opportu- nity, attention, will develop difference of judgment. Knowledge alone precludes differences; but so far as it is knowledge it does. Truth is one, and never contradictory, and so must knowledge be. In mere opinions or beliefs there may be exact truth, some truth, or no truth at all ; or, possibly, there may be some truth and some error in each case ; but there will in most cases be inevitable differences, and MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 9 where there is difference there must be some error somewhere. Right use of faculty, with fair oppor- tunity, will either discover the truth in most cases, or will discover that there is no possible ground for any belief whatever. It results that with regard to all matters about which we cannot obtain personal knowledge, since we must have opinions, we owe it to truth to use proper diligence in the em- ployment of the best means in our reach to at- tain right conclusions. With honesty, we shall get the substance of truth in most cases ; and in every case, will have done the best in our power. We will not have outraged reason in either our doubts or beliefs. Continued difference and disputation should not discourage us. In the nature of the case this is in- evitable. Each mind must act for itself, and as new minds are constantly coming into the arena, the old questions must be fought over in each age. It is a fair presumption that the debate will never cease, and nothing will ever be settled for all time. This is not because there is no truth, nor because truth cannot be ascertained, but because it must be sought by each generation, and, in fact, by each mind for itself, and so each mind must renew the combat. There is no other way. Let the glori- ous fight go on ! The sturdier the blows the better for truth. The subject we are now discussing, we have seen, 20 BEYOND THE GRAVE. is not one about which we possess knowledge. The result is difference or disagreement in the conclu- sions reached. The following will sufficiently for- mulate the several views which have prevailed, and indicate the differences ; and our business will be to impartially examine them, and show the rea- sons why one view should be embraced and others rejected. Among the divergent views there are varieties under two classes: — Class first includes all who deny any existence after death. Class second includes all who admit some kind of existence after death. The varieties are modifications of one kind or another on the general subject. I. Agnostics — PyrrJicnists. These two schools of thought come to unity in the conclusion, but by different routes. They each deny the possibility of knowledge, and for this reason attempt to abstain from belief. To the question, Does man survive death ? they answer, We do not know. To the question, What do you believe? they answer, We have no belief. This class is, and must always be, extremely small and insignificant, and can never have appreciable influence over the general mind.* * It is an inconsistency of this school, that while it assumes that there is no ground of belief, it is the most militant of all against cer- tain phases of belief. It disbelieves, without perceiving that dis- belief is only another form of belief. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 21 Their atmosphere is too thin for the average man to live in. Men must have opinions, and a school which absolutely refuses to contribute any thing to the common stock can elicit no respect, and gain no following. 2. Atheists — Materialists. This school, under all its phases, reduces all existence to matter, and admits of nothing as possible but its shifting phenomena. Forms perish and never return. Death ends all. 3. A Modified Materialism, which holds that, while back of all there is an infinite Spirit, man is but an animated clod, an organism of matter. Among those agreeing in this view so far, there is a difference as to the effect of death, one part holding that it is utter overthrow, while another part, claiming to be Christian, holds to some future restoration of the organism, and an immortal life to the good subsequent thereto. As to the fate of the evil-minded or wicked, some of these hold that they will be raised and publicly destroyed — ■ annihilated — while some do not believe that they have any future at all. 4. Of the second class are a school of Christian thinkers, who hold to the existence of a spiritual soul, but who hold that death is its lapse or anni- hilation, except where it is rendered immortal by special gift through faith in Christ. The unbeliev- ing utterly perish. 5. A class of Christians, who affirm that man 22 BEYOND THE GRAVE. is a spirit, and is immortal, but who believe that, separate from the body, he becomes unconscious, and remains so until the body is raised again at the last day. The interval is a profound sleep. 6. The common Christian view, that man is a spirit, to whom death is simple separation from the body, without loss or interruption of consciousness, and that the emancipated soul enters immediately upon an immortal life. To this they add belief in a resurrection of the body, but differ as to the time and manner of it; whether it comes at death, or at some remote time, and whether it is a restoration of the perished body, in whole or in part, or a rcin- vestiture of the spirit with a different and more glo- rious spiritual body. These, also, differ among themselves as to whether souls enter immediately at death upon their final and most exalted state, or only upon an intermediate and, compared with the former, an inferior condition, until after the resur- rection. The defense of the last-named theory, in the form in which we accept it, will bring all the other views under examination, and its establishment will be their refutation. The pivotal and crucial point of the discussion is the question, which in some form comes to view in all the theories, whether man is a spiritual being or not. Around this point the battle of the ages has been fought, to be renewed as each generation comes upon the field. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 2$ If it were once established that man is simply the organized thing which we cognize by sense, the de- bate would soon close, further discussion would be- come a simple impertinence. It is that hallucina- tion so strangely possessing many, almost all, minds, which makes the principal difficulty in arriving at the. truth in the premises. The thing which we see, and touch, and handle — which for a time goes in and out among us with a visible presence — which strangely fascinates us while it stays, and saddens us when it is -removed — which, while living, exercises over us a witchery that nothing else ever can, and, when dead, becomes more sacred than any thing we ever knew — we come to think is our self or our friend. When finally it sickens, and dies, and becomes unresponsive to our cries of affection, we say our friend is dead. We identify the stark, cold, and unresponsive mold which lies before us with the person. We wonder if he will ever come to life again. This is the first great mistake. Starl- ing from it, every step is dark and discouraging. We consign the quickly-decaying form to the grave. We know that it soon molders to dust. There is not a single sign that it will ever germinate or return to life. There is every indication that it never will. To believe that it will, on any facts which appear, or any rational ground within our reach, is impossible. Until we see that the corrupting clod, however dear to us, is not the person we so fondly loved, hope 24 BEYOND THE GRAVE. even is impossible, much more rational belief. If it is only the house that is in ruins, there is a possi- ble chance for the thought, that maybe the over- throw is not utter and irretrievable. But how shall we find our way out of this thick darkness? There is this additional discouragement, that while wc see the form utterly dissipated, and have not the slightest hint of its restoration, but absolute and overwhelming proof to the contrary, the person himself, if distinct from the body, vanishes so quickly that we do not see what has become of him. Has he gone out like a flash, or stolen away unobserved ? Who can tell ? Sense gives us no in- formation whatever : this we are constrained to admit. The argument, from sense, is wholly ad- verse to the idea that any thing survives, or that there will ever be a return. Not the faintest ray of hope comes from that quarter, the darkness is utter. We strain our eyes in vain, wc listen with breath- less silence to no purpose. We neither see, nor hear, nor feel, the vanishing spirit, and no report of any kind floats back over the dark sea. He has departed, and no one that goes that way returns to tell the story. For ages the world has been waiting and watching ; millions, with broken hearts, have hovered around the yawning abyss ; but no echo has come back from the engulfing gloom — silence, oblivion, covers all. If indeed they survive ; if they went away whole and victorious, MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 2$ they give us no signals. We wait for years, but no messages come from the far-away shore to which they have gone. The result is, that any evidence that may exist on the question, do we survive death ? must arise from one of two sources : — 1. From such facts, of a super-sensible kind, as come within our knowledge, which may render it reasonable to believe that death is not the de- struction of the self-conscious subject. The evi- dence will be inductive, and its value will depend on the adequacy of the facts to sustain the inference or conclusion deduced. If the facts are undisputed and indisputable, and if they point plainly and strongly to the probability of a future life, and if there be no counter facts canceling them, they may be of evidential value. The facts may be of per- sonal experience and consciousness, or may be com- mon and general ; facts with respect to the nature of mind, either as to its essence or faculties ; facts of the moral nature ; or facts of God, and of the hopes and fears of men, awakened under his gov- ernment. Whatever their kind, if they seem to bear on the question it will be^reasonable to con- sider them. Possibly they may pilot us through the gloom, and reveal to us a haven on a far-away coast which our sensual eye cannot discern. 2. The evidence must be, if neither addressed to the senses nor to the reason in its inductive 26 BEYOND THE GRAVE. function, direct testimony of persons who have information in the premises either from personal knowledge or knowledge communicated to them by those who had real information. The eviden- tial value of such testimony, as in every other case, will depend on the competence of the witness, and the character of the facts alleged. If all had immediate knowledge, the testimony would be uni- versal. If any have, it may be as conclusive as if it were universal. We claim that we have these two branches of evidence ; that there arc facts which warrant the induction, and that we have testimony direct of competent witnesses. In the treatment we will ob- serve the order indicated, considering first those facts which warrant the induction. To bring out this branch of evidence in its full force -I must re- turn to the examination of the proofs that man is a spirit shrined in a body, the spirit being the true self. The only possible doubt is on the point that he is a spirit. The proposition asserts, not simply that there are these two parts to man — an organism of earth and an indwelling spirit — but that the deep- est truth, the very essence of his manhood, is that he is a spirit. Properly speaking, he is a spiritual being, and the earthy form is external and merely instrumental to him. This is what we are required to prove. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 2*J There will be no dispute that the man is the self- conscious person — the ego. The only possible con- troversy must arise around this point — is that self- conscious person identical with the earthy form, or is it distinct from it and master over it? What we hope to prove is, that it is distinct. Before we proceed with the arguments, there are some embarrassments which ought to be noted — things which, if we be not on our guard, will con- stantly mislead us, and prevent us from reaching the truth. Such are these : a constant habit r from childhood, of calling the form the man, and of think- ing it is so. This idea has so grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength, that it is next to impossible to break its power; and, while we live in the mere plane of the senses, as most of us do always, it seems to be true. It requires an effort to rise above the delusion — and an effort to which minds unaccustomed to reflection are unequal. The form is the most obvious part, and is so won- drously near to us, and so mixed up with our experi- ences, that we do not see exactly how it is that it is not us. It cleaves to us with such tenacity that we cannot disentangle ourselves from it for a moment. It interpenetrates us so that its affections seem to be- come our very own — its hurt our hurt — its balm our balm. It goes-, we go ; it stays, we stay ; it is sick, we are sick ; it convalesces, we recover ; oxygen and hydrogen dc not more clearly blend in the globule 28 BEYOND THE GRAVE. of dew, than we with the form. Is it any marvel that we find it quite impossible to discriminate the self from it ? Yet nothing is more certain than that they are two — completely and utterly dissimilar; and the person is the one and not the other. There are reasons in the nature, functions, and probable destiny of the person, why, for the present, it should be so intimately united with the form. The great fact in the copartnership is, that the spirit pos- sesses all the personal endowments, and the form is merely subject and instrumental — but each has an identity of its own, in which the other has no partici- pation whatever. The life of the spirit is its power to think, and feel, and will ; the life of the form is its power to digest and assimilate food, and build up tissue. The aliment of the spirit is knowledge, that of the form is vegetable and animal substance. The spirit thrills with the sense of beauty, and goodness, and truth ; the form trembles and dilates with nerv- ous excitement, under touch and sound. The spirit is invisible and impalpable ; the form is visible and tangible. The spirit grows by increase of thought ; the form by increase of bulk and weight. The spirit loves or hates, rejoices or sorrows ; the form sways and bends with sympathetic nervous affection. Thus we perceive a marked and absolute difference between the two in all their characteristics, phe- nomenal and essential. They have absolutely noth- ing in common. They are no further similar or MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 29 identical than this, that, for the present, they dwell together, and serve each other ; and the union seems an end and is for an end. In the end served it is discernible that the form is for the spirit as servant and instrument. The spirit uses it, and for a time, at least, needs it. And in this connection several economical facts appear, still fur- ther marking their difference, and indicating the pre- eminence and personal and regal dignity of the spirit over the form. The form is wholly destitute of power of any kind ; it could neither begin nor continue action or motion of itself: even its vital automatic action within itself is not of itself, but of some exter- nal power : it would not continue to exist as a form for any considerable time if left to itself; it must be fed, and clothed, and doctored vigilantly or it would rapidly run to ruin; it is idiotic and beastly; it neither sees, nor hears, nor tastes; it is purely an in- strument and servant. The spirit, on the other hand, is a proprietor and master. He does not, indeed, create the form — that is done for him — but he uses it. He is quick and powerful and discerning ; he discov- ers food, and clothing, and medicine ; and compels the idiotic form to cook, and weave, and compound them for its own preservation. He contrives shelter for it, and drives it in from the inclement weather. He forecasts, and makes it, without knowing why it does it, build barns and cribs and fill them with food for the ensuing want : he economizes and lays 30 BEYOND THE GRAVE. aside capital for the rainy day ; if the form gets out of order — becomes lame, or dyspeptic, or rheumatic — he sends for a doctor ; if it loses a limb he invents one and repairs the loss ; if its eye is weak or insuffi- cient he creates a secondary visual instrument ; and in a thousand other ways he superintends and sup- plies the incessant and nameless wants of his per- ishable and helpless companion. Much of his time and thought and power are employed in this inferior kind of work, but not without reason. He needs the service of the form in return. He cares for it because he intends to use it for his own purposes, or because he must have its offices in reaching his own higher and nobler ends. lie wants to see and hear, for by seeing and hearing the world of knowl- edge opens to him — he cannot afford to be deaf and blind ; he wants to travel, to visit foreign lands, he cannot afford to have it crippled and bedridden : in a word, he commands its feet to carry him from place to place for business or pleasure ; he com- mands its hands to execute, in stone or metal or pig- ment, his ideals of beauty; to write and blazon his thoughts ; to carry on his industries and arts ; to build ships, that he may navigate the seas ; to con- struct highways of iron, that he may traverse the continents ; to build electric bridges across the world, that he may hold converse with people of all zone:< and climes. He does all this for his own ends, simply using the form as the instrument by which MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 3 1 to accomplish his manifold wishes and conveni- ences. But while man's power over the instrument is so great, it is not complete. He that made it and con- tinues it for his use, making it dependent on him in many ways, did not subject it utterly. He can em- ploy its hands and feet, and eyes and ears, but he has no power over its digestive processes or heart beats, or any of its organic functions. For all uses of serv- ice, it is perfectly responsive to his volitions ; but be- yond that, he has no more power over it than he has over any other alien substance. All its vital processes are under the control of some other mind, whose existence and agency he perceives, but whom his consciousness cannot reach. Thus we perceive by this simple statement of facts, which lie on the surface of our being, that man is dual, and that his spirit is self-conscious lord and master, and his or- ganism an objective and external thing. The superficial view — the sense view — is, that man is what you see, what you touch, what you handle — this shrine or organism. That is all that sense gives you. It is the view that comes first to every observer. For sense-facts come first to cognition ; and to the unreflecting, remain the most powerful throughout life. Were this sense-view true, I should be constrained to say, there is not a particle of evi- dence, within the reach of man, that he is an im- mortal being ; for there are no facts which point to 32 BEYOND THE GRAVE. a return to life of the body which is destroyed. We must be able, therefore, to show that what you see is not the man, or abandon all idea of his immor- tality on rational grounds. The task which I now undertake is, to show that the essential man is an invisible quantity, which never comes within the range of sense, cognition, or observation, and is detected by sense only as it comes to manifestation in some visible form of ac- tivity — the being himself always remaining invisible. Man, as a material being, is simply an instru- mental arrangement or organism for the use of the deeper man, which is a spiritual being, and is sepa- rate and distinct from the material organization ; as separate and distinct as from any other tools which he uses and employs. I say as distinct, though more nearly related. The body is an instrument furnished him by his Maker, and put immediately under his will. It is the only tool which he can di- rectly use, or which his will or personal power can immediately move. By it he constructs and uses all other instruments. He commands the hand to make and employ them ; but he is as really distinct from the hand as he is from the saw, or hammer, or brush, or pen ; he has power over the secondary instrument, indirectly, by means of the primary or divinely furnished instrument. He thinks. This is his first properly personal act: then he desires to put his thoughts in some visible form. Instinctive MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 33 impulses of the nature of desires may precede think- ing, but they are not properly personal acts. He can only give visible form to his thought by a sign : to make that he must use the body. He would make the thought permanently visible ; he uses the body again ; but he must subsidize some other in- strument besides, so he commands the hand to make a pen, and then directs it how to use it, and a volume is produced. All action subsequent to thought and volition is purely instrumental, and we see the existence of the actor only in the use of the instrument. That is my theory. How shall I prove it? For it is a vain thing to assert it if a reason cannot be alleged for it ; and it is a vain thing to allege a reason which is not sufficient to carry con- viction, for it is the intent of teaching to set before the mind the grounds of a conclusion. The grand, fundamental distinction here is, a dis- tinction between spirit and matter, and I turn to that for a moment. It is wider than the distinc- tion in human nature, because it pervades other ranks of being and all beings. My point, then, is, that there are two kinds of being. One is spirit, the other is matter ; one is form, the other makes form, and uses or employs form. To make this appear I must have your atten- tion. Spirit is the factor of thought. , It has other characteristics, but this suffices now. I shall not dwell upon the point that mere matter is not 5 34 BE YOND THE GRA VE. a factor of thought. For the present I postu- late that ; and further, for the present I postulate that matter does not become a factor of thought when organized. If thought be in existence, the kind of being which manifests it and exercises it is therefore distinct from mere gross matter, and, also, from organized matter; and, further, I now postu- late that behind or antecedent to every organism, and necessary to it, is a thought-factor. I state it with the confidence with which I would state any mathematical axiom. I mean to affirm that ante- cedent to any organism, and necessary thereto, and distinct from the organism, there must be a thought- factor. I shall now proceed to illustrate it, begin- ning with things that we are acquainted with. I hold in my hand an organized machine, a common time-piece, a Geneva watch. Now, what you know of this is its existence in my hand. Sense gives you nothing more. Sense tells you nothing of its history at all, nothing of its trans- formation from crude ores to this beautiful highly polished machine, and never can. Sense gives you nothing at all but the fact of its existence. But reason pursues the question, " Whence came the machine ? " It raises the question, and evolves a history of the facts in the case. By its investiga- tions it determines that some time this little ma- chine existed in unorganized and separate parts, distributed in the unliving elements of the world ; MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 35 and, that by a process it has come into this present form. And reason, not sense, tells us what that process was. It tells us that before the machine existed as it is now found, there was a thinker who existed, and who thought it out. Primarily it was an idea. First, in thought he shaped the elements, adjusted them, fastened them after their adjust- ment, put the key in, and wound up the thought- machine, and it went, ticking away time. Then he said : " I will make this thought-machine concrete. I will make this idea real." And to make it real he must resort to instrumentalities, for he is an imma- terial being, whose only function in the case is to think and will. I do not speak of his other func- tions, but they are all non-material to this state- ment. His primal function is to think out the machine. Having thought it by volition, he puts himself into relations with the materiality, and evolves it and reveals himself to others. The fin- ished machine is the flower of his thought. Neith- er himself nor his thought is, nor ever can be, seen. But the completed watch shows that he is, and that he is a thinker — it reveals him. He constructs out of gross material, but according to a pattern not in the things, but a pattern in him- self, an ideal pattern. He saws, and files, and pounds, and hammers until he gets all the draughts that are in idea in him transferred to matter, and then he puts them together, and pins them up, and 36 BEYOND THE GRAVE. we have the concrete machine. Now what I affirm is, first, that the completed machine is so dependent on that thought-factor that it could not exist with- out it ; and, second, that the thought is necessarily older than the product. And I affirm, further, that what is true in that case is necessarily true in every case in which there is an organic existence — in which there is an arrangement of things in parts to answer particular ends. The result — that thought lies be- hind organism, is found to be an eternal and neces- sary law. There is a form of materialism which, while it rec- ognizes the existence of thought and of a thought- factor, says that the thought-factor is the brain. It admits that gross, common, unorganized matter has no such power; but asserts that when matter is or- ganized and brought into a certain condition or tex- ture, it acquires the power to think and plan. Were this theory true, which it is not, then all the thought which has ever been, or ever could be, must ema- nate from organized matter. But if organization is the sole fountain of thought, then the question arises, Whence came the organization which origi- nates thought? If thought must precede and orig- inate common crude organism, and if they always point to antecedent thought for their explanation, how did this highest organism of all — the brain — come into existence without a thought behind it ? If the brain generates all thought, what generates MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 37 the brain? The case is like this: An instrument, say a hand-organ, grinds out a tune, and the ques- tion is raised whence came the tune, and the answer is, It is produced by the organ. But the question returns, How did it get into the organ ? It could not get there had it not been put there ; but then it originally existed not in the organ, but in the being who put it in the organ. In a word, be- fore the organ can evolve the tune, the organ must have a maker, and it must be made with exact fit- ness to produce the tune, and the maker must him- self know the tune before he can make the instru- ment that will produce it. The brain represents the organ ; the thought, the tune ; and the question is, How did the power to think get into the brain, and whence came the brain itself? If the brain be the fountain of all human thought, what is the fountain of the older and greater thought which devised the brain in order that it might deliver the lesser thought, and which produced all other or- ganisms, of which the universe is full, from the globule of water or grain of sand to the sidereal splendors — from the radiate to man — which certainly did not emanate from the human brain. Are we to understand that there is some great brain some- where that produced all them ? What produced that great brain, and whence did it get its power to make as well as think? Let any man begin to enumerate the products of 38 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. human thought, the things that have come out of human brains, or human intellect, the brain being simply the pole of human instrumentality; let him begin to look abroad over man's world of organized things, and he must become amazed sometimes, and feel like bowing down in worship before this exalted form of being that humanity is, which, when intro- duced to existence, had simple faculty, and nothing else ; which, thus equipped, has gone into the in- vestigation and study of the system of things about it, and has evolved out of crude matter that great world of man's invention and man's production, which almost rivals in its complexity and sublimity the vast worlds of God's production and creation. Go through the world of machinery ; investigate towns and cities ; the museums, and libraries, and laboratories, and art galleries, and contrivances by which men explore the realm of God — and you stand in awe before the majesty of the human intel- lect. If now I push myself behind man's works into the higher organisms of nature, I find that the en- tire universe is a complex of organisms from base to finial — an organism of organisms ; and if the power to organize is found in the brain, it must have existed in the creator of the brain, who endowed it with the power. I find that organization begins at the base, and includes every atom. There is not a grain of sand MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 39 that is not a high organization. It is the product of a combination, or a complex of original elements which produce it under a law. A drop of water is an organism produced by a law that is immutable in nature, found written upon two separate and dis- tinct elements, oxygen and hydrogen, by which eighty-eight parts of one and twelve parts of the other, wherever they meet, under suitable condi- tions, unite and produce one result ; a law written upon them, so that organization arises from the very foundation to the topmost parts of the universe. Passing by for the present the structure of the heavens, so marvelous for its ingenuity, so vast in its sweep, and infinite in its power, immeasurably surpassing all human conception, we turn to the inferior contrivances which appear on our globe. Nothing is more certain than that there was a time when none of these existed. The strata in the earth's crust record their advent. There must have been a cause behind them. That cause was a thinker, for they are patterned after an idea. Before they could come to reality they were necessarily ideas, as in the case of the watch. Take any of the vegetable forms, as they exist in almost infinite variety — or any of the animal forms, from the microscopic in- sect to the highest creature — and each will be found to be a deft exact complex of unity, more ingenious by far than any human production, and necessarily displaying greater thought-power. 40 BEYOND THE GRAVE. Now as behind the works of human art I place a thinker, so here I must place a mind, which first schemed in idea all these forms of vegetable life, and all these forms of animal life, and said, " I will make these things to be real." And by volition, and an exercise of power, that mind has concreted a living and organized system of things, primitively in seeds or germs, from which all spring. Now I turn to the larger system of the heavens and the earth. More primitive than these living forms— farthest back of all manifestation— older than the oldest works— I find that there is a deft organism more complete in the exposition of its perfection than the celebrated watch, made of worlds whose wheels are the invisible and intangible paths which the suns and satellites pursue through the heavens, perfect in their adjustment, unvarying in their mo- tions, and changeless in their inter-orbital relations, overspreading an abyss immeasurable to imaffina- tion even. This magnificent display, order, and power had a beginning. This is often disputed, It is said that it is eternal, and need not, cannot, be accounted for. If this were true, it would not disprove the eternity of a being who possesses in- telligence, for there can be no concrete intelligence, or intelligible order, without a being in whom the intelligence is. But it is not so — the organized ma- terial universe is not eternal. This is a most im- portant point, and we must delay to establish it, MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 4 1 that it may stand, not as simply an assertion, but as a demonstrated fact. We say demonstrated, for we shall prove beyond dispute that the assumption of the eternity of the universe not only is not probably true, but that it is impossible it should be true. The essential idea of eternal is unbegun existence. We postulate that no order of succession can be eternal. That is to say, no kind or arrangement of being which includes periodic changes can be eter- nal. The changeless only can be eternal. There is no such thing as an infinite number, or an infi- nite series, by the addition or accumulation of which the eternal can be reached, or to whose sum the eternal can be equated. For the basis of number is unity, and that which is made up of units or de- veloped out of units can be enlarged or diminished. And the sum can never be so great that it may not be twice as great, or a million times greater, or any other number of times greater, and never so small that it cannot be divided down to unity, and then be sunk to an infinitesimal fraction. Thus any possible series, the numbers of which are limited by something preceding and something following, must be finite. Of any possible series, there must be one member which antedates all the rest — one which stands at the head. All those which follow the first must have had a beginning. The first must also have had a beginning unless it is unlike all the rest, and, therefore, not a true member of the 6 42 BEYOND THE GRAVE. series. But if the first differ from all the rest in that it had no beginning, then back of the series is a true eternal — the first. Behind all beginnings there must be one unbegun. Now I am to prove that the present order of the universe had a beginning, and so cannot be eternal. For the elucidation of the point, we may take any part of the universal system. We select the earth. The thesis is to prove that its present is not eternal — once was not — and at some time began. The fact is, the earth has a definite relation to the sun. It has two motions. First, a motion around the sun in what is called its orbit — a uniform path, in the form of an elongated circle or ellipse. This orbit it travels at a fixed rate of motion, com- pleting the circuit in a year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a fragment of a day. Its one position during the revolution causes its two poles alternately to be toward the sun, and this, with the ellipse of its orbit, brings about four seasons in each revolution, or in each year. But it has, also, another motion. While passing through the great circle it unintermittently revolves around its own axis once in every twenty-four hours. This motion causes it to present all its surfaces to the sun once in each revolution. The side toward the sun is al- ways illuminated by the sun's light, the obverse side is always dark. Thus every part of the surface is light and dark a certain number of each twenty- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 43 four hours. That is the order. I am to show that it is impossible that that order should be eternal, or that it never had a beginning. This I demon- strate in two ways, and, if I succeed, prove not simply that possibly the system once started, but that it is impossible that it did not start. First. In every revolution of the earth in its solar orbit it revolves three hundred and sixty-five times in its axilar orbit ; the number of days is three hun- dred and sixty-five times the number of years that the earth has existed. There has not, then, been an infinite number of years, unless there has been three hundred and sixty-five times an infinite num- ber of days, which is absurd. But if there has been less than an infinite number of years, the number is finite, and the result is finite, not eternal ; and, in the order existing, this is an eternal necessity, that is, it is impossible it should ever be otherwise. Second. Each solar revolution is subsequent to some other solar revolution. This is a necessary fact in the order. Subsequence thus enters into each revolution, unless some one revolution was not subsequent to another ; but subsequence cannot in- clude the eternal ; and, if there was one that was not subsequent, it had a beginning, for it comprised only three hundred and sixty-five days ; the whole series, then, had a beginning ; but nothing that be- gins can be eternal. Third. At this point of land, called Fair Point, un- 44 BEYOND THE GRAVE. der the order of axilar motion there has always been alternately either day or night several hours out of each twenty-four. Now, in this order, either day or night must necessarily have been first, for they do not co-exist at the same time. If day was first the first night had a beginning, but then all events subsequent to that first night falls within a time that had a beginning, and that first day that pre- ceded that first night, also, had a beginning, or it was eternal, and behind the order of alternate day and night, there was one eternal day. I assert that this is of the nature of a demonstration, and estab- lishes the point that the present order of things has a beginning of necessity. Again, I will give an- other illustration. The position I refute is, that the order of nature has had no beginning. My self-imposed duty is to show, not that possibly it had a beginning, but that it is impossible it had not. Its structure necessitates the idea and fact of a beginning. Take so humble a thing as maize or corn that grows in your field. The order is, that the grain docs not come except on the stalk. The stalk must exist in order to, and before, the grain. But so neither docs the stalk exist without the grain. The grain must be before the stalk, and in order to it. There is never a grain without a stalk to produce it, or a stalk without a grain to produce it. But it is impossible that this should always have been so. There must of necessity have been MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 45 a time when this series was set a-going by the crea- tion of a stalk without a grain, or a grain without a stalk, or they were created at one time, the grain and stalk together. The same argument will apply to all the series in the universe — to all things that have parts or motions coming in succession. Take another illustration. This time it shall be from our own species. The present order is, that each man that exists had a father and mother who existed before him. There can be no human being without a father and mother ; but it is certain that some one pair of human beings must have existed without either father or mother — but then the or- der is not eternal. There was a beginning: to all o o those who sprang from father and mother. The first pair was either eternal, or was at some time created, without father or mother ; but in either case the order is different from the present ; and for the new departure there must be a creative cause, and the cause must be an intelligent cause, as the newly instituted order is an intelligible order. But if there be no escape from these conclusions on principles of reason, the ascertainable facts are all in their support. It is easy to unravel the entire material system, and show that it had a beginning. The geological records are explicit. The successive strata contain, in exact order, the entire memorials of life. We find when each race assumed its place in the developing order or series. We descend from 46 BEYOND THE GRAVE. the present, or superficial, crust in which the me- morials of existing races are contained, to the dawn of life and crystallization itself. Below the monu- mental remains of vital energy we come to a more ancient azoic world; demonstrating that all living force and products thereof had a beginning. This is now practically undisputed. Nothing can be more plain or certain than this: — That the present order of the universe is a time order. It has the force of an axiom, that no aggregation of a series, in which the parts have a beginning, can be as a whole unbegun. The be- ginningness which characterizes each part must characterize the aggregate. This great universe had a beginning. But if it had a beginning, once it was not. Then, when it did not exist, it could not begin itself, for non-existence cannot act cre- atively. But then there must have been some being back of it who had no beginning, and that being must have possessed power to cause it. But the effect can manifest nothing that was not in the cause. The conspicuous thing in the effect is plan and power; then the cause must have exerted power and exhibited thought. Then the power and thought are eternal, and the spirit-factor is more ancient than all organized existence. Then thought and power cannot be the result of organized matter, for it creates all organized matter. Nothing that be- gins is without a beginner, and nothing that can be MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 47 translated or interpreted by intelligence as an intelli- gible order, can emanate from an unintelligent cause. Is it said, All that we can know of the system of the universe is the system itself — the solid and real things ? I answer, We know the thought in them, as really as we know the things. It is no more cer- tain that the things exist than it is that their ar- rangement expresses thought ; and therefore that he that made them according to the pattern of thought was himself a thinker. I answer again, The things which we call real, meaning that they have substance of being, are not the most real. They are, indeed, but shadows — these everlasting mount- ains of granite — these solid globes. He only is real who made them. They are but coming and van- ishing tokens of the infinite power beneath them, which only hath root of being in itself. If there be any deduction of reason that may be relied on as certain, it is that the bottom and eternal fact of the universe is a living, intelligent, free, personal Spirit. The proof is not less strong, that man is a spirit. We see the eternal Spirit, not directly, for he is in- visible, but we see him in his works. The real man is just as invisible as his Maker, for he is made after the divine pattern. We see him, also, in his works. He knows himself only in consciousness, and con- sciousness asserts that he is not a mere clod of earth, but that he is a spirit. Consciousness absolutely 48 BEYOND THE GRAVE. knows nothing of the self, except that it thinks, feels, and wills. Every thing else — the body as much as any thing — consciousness declares is not the self, but is objective to the self. If man is not a spirit, consciousness is a cheat. That old Greek who paraded the market-places of Athens with a lighted candle at noonday to find a man, was not a wise philosopher, else he had known that man does not appear under a candle- light, or any other light. Man is invisible. I see where you live. I can tell when you are at home by the mysterious reflection on the window. I see that you are now within. You are radiating your- self, projecting your shadow, upon that mysterious mirror which the infinite made capable of reflect- ing the impalpable presence of a spirit, even of a thought. I know by the candid and inquisitive earnestness of your expression, by the strange luster of your eyes, and the flush and glow of your coun- tenances, that you arc now busy with my thought. I do not see your essential self, nor do you see me; but it is impossible for you to doubt my existence, or for me to doubt yours. I know, by conscious- ness, that I am ; by observation, I know that you are; and by reflection, I see that we are essentially alike. The house in which I live, and from which during life I never depart, is also, besides being a dwelling, a deft machine of manifold adaptation and power, which I use in numberless ways for the MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 49 service of my wishes. I command it to take me about the world, and show me things. I want to see Europe, or Asia, or Africa, and I cannot go without being carried. And if I could go without being carried it would do me no good, for I have been so adjusted that I need the machine, not sim- ply to transport me from place to place, but to en- able me to see and communicate with objects about me. I must always, while I live in this world, have it with me, and fortunately, cannot leave it be- hind. I command it and it moves, walks, runs to do my bidding, wears itself out for me. To save it from weariness, I invent coaches, sleighs, steam- ships, railroads, and other modes of conveyance, and set it to work to make them carry it about, and bring me with more speed and ease on my jour- neys. It is my slave — sometimes an expensive servant indeed, for I have to take care of it, and keep it in order. It cannot think for itself, so I must keep watch for it, clothe, feed, coddle, and doctor it, or it will speedily run to ruin. I want some delicate work executed — a deft piece of art, an exact piece of mechanism, writing, painting, sculpt- ure, wheels pivoted in diamonds, a mill, or a steam- ship, — any thing : I command the machine, and it obeys me — enters upon the work, and prosecutes it to the end. But it will not move except as I move it, any more than a file or chisel. In fact, it cannot stir without my command. I watch it, and put power 50 BEYOND THE GRAVE. into it, and when it comes to the delicate touch, if it shakes or trembles, I say, " Be steady; do it nice- ly." Am I not conscious that I am different from the instrument I am commanding and using? do I not know that I am not the flesh and blood that I am controlling? Then, thanks to the scientists, to the physiol- ogists, they tell me my machine is being repaired all the time — that it is going to pieces — and I know it very well ; that it takes only about seven years to make an entirely new one. Like the traditional jack-knife, which had successively lost all the original blades and handle, and yet, by gradually acquiring new ones, retained its identity, so my machine loses all its old parts, and acquires new, every seven or ten years. So I bow to my present machine and say: " You are about the sixth or sev- enth that I have had for my use, and the others have vanished away." But what I wish to call your attention to is, that while my machine goes, blades and handle, time after time, I stay. I do not go, I abide. The other day I was visiting a place to dedicate a church. In the early morning (it was spring) I was awakened by a weird and strange sound that stole through the open casement and roused me up — a sound that somehow thrills more deeply into my soul than any other sound in mere animate nature. It was the cooing of a dove. It came borne in on MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 5 I the morning air, and I listened. As I listened to its swell it choked me, almost broke my heart ; and in a moment I saw a dove on a broken limb of a walnut-tree standing by an old crooked lane, down by a worm-fence ; and I saw its bosom heaving as if its heart would break. I gazed at it. I was a little boy, standing on the yard-fence of my father's house. More than fifty years had. elapsed since that event, but it stood out before me that morning as if it had been but yesterday. By a strange law of association, starting with the early memory, I lived life over again. I went in and saw my mother, beautiful as she was in her young womanhood. She put her hands on my head, kissed me, and soothed my childish sorrow. I bowed at her knee and re- cited my infant prayers again. Then came early school days, and old playmates gathered about me, and old loves and joys were lived over ; creeks, hills, roads, lanes, fields, and woods familiar to child- hood, looked at me with their old familiar look, each alive and palpitating with precious memories. My cheeks were bedewed with tears, as the thrill- ing pictures with such strange vividness passed be- fore me. Voices of the long-since dead sounded on that still morning air ; I seemed to hear them call- ing over the gulf of half a hundred years, as they greeted me in that long ago. Then I was a young man. My college days were past. The wide world was before me. With anxious and trembling ex- 52 BEYOND THE GRAVE. pectation I was looking into the future, all uncer- tain of what might be its sorrows or successes. My horse was at the gate, my father's blessing sounded on my ear afresh, my mother's tearful farewell was repeated. I hastily mounted the horse and rode away. Then opened upon me the long journey of years up to that morning, stretching over seas, oceans, continents, almost the entire globe. Cities, towns, temples, museums, peoples, from every land which I had visited, rose up around me with minute exactness. I knew that I was the same self, through all the changes of all the years. The same that spring morning, though gray and scarred, that gazed with tearful sorrow on the moaning dove fifty years be- fore. My body had changed and many times van- ished away, but I abided ; the years had driven me from house to house, time and again, but they had not impaired me. That which abides is a spirit. Bodies change and die, only spirit remains. The spirit retains its treasure. Material wealth perishes; becomes cankered and moth-eaten, and takes to itself wings and flies away. Spirit treasures can neither be stolen nor consumed. Have you ever thought where you keep your treasures? There are picture galleries in the old world hung with beautiful pictures. I know a pict- ure gallery that is larger than the Louvre ; larger than the picture galleries of Dresden; larger, if you bring them all together, than the German, the French, MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 53 the Italian, the English, and all the other galleries in the world ; a vast temple whose walls are hung with more beautiful pictures than any creations of the old masters ; but it is not built of stone, and the pictures are not made of paint or upon canvas : it is the picture gallery of my soul, where all things that I ever saw appear. They are not painted on material canvas, but they are painted somewhere. They live in thought, they hang in the great halls of memory, they glow in my mind ; and what I as- sert is, that that picture gallery, and that soul that looks upon these pictures, is not a material con- struction — the pictures are no photographs on ma- terial plates, piled up somewhere — not impressions on nerve surfaces. The light which illumines them is not material light. They are visible in the dark- est night. The eye that gazes on them is not a material eye. There is not a particle of materiality about the pictures, the halls where they are hung, or the beholder. That there is a spirit in man distinct from the body, is shown further from phenomena which ap- pear in him — phenomena which cannot be predi- cated of mere matter. We are sometimes asked to define what we mean by spirit. We can only an- swer, We mean by spirit a something — a real be- ing — which becomes known to us by phenomena utterly unlike those exhibited by matter. This def- inition is thought not to be satisfactory; but why 54 BEYOND THE GRAVE. not? If asked to define matter, we are in precisely the same predicament. We can only recite the names of certain phenomena, which the thing which we call matter exhibits, but we do not, therefore, complain that the definition is unsatisfactory. It is something which has form, color, weight, fluid- ity, solidity, length, breadth, thickness, special rela- tions through which certain forces play, and in which certain changes in motion or composition take place. That is all we can say about it. We do not therefore doubt that there is a something, a reality, back of the name, exhibiting the phe- nomena. If we know any thing, we know that reality of being and substance is where phenom- ena are. The cases are not in the least dissimilar. Both are known and described only as they appear in phenomena. This results from the nature of our mind. The phenomena indicate two distinct kinds of reality. We recite discrete classes of phe- nomena to define them. The class predicated of the one cannot be, and never is, predicated of the other. We have seen some of the terms by which we indicate matter. To indicate the reality which we call spirit, we must resort to the use of other terms of a totally different signification. It is a reality which appears to us as a thinking, feeling, willing something. Thus, and thus only, it makes itself known to us. It cannot be doubted that I know that there is a something which thinks, just MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 55 as certainly and clearly as I do that there is some- thing which is round or square. If of the one 1 cannot predicate form, or weight, or color, which I certainly cannot, of the other I can no more predi- cate thought, feeling, or will ; but of both I can predicate they are, because of certain discrete phe- nomena which they both exhibit. Precisely the same difficulties and necessities encompass both. But is it said, A thing without form and other qualities of matter is inconceivable ? we answer, That if by conceivable is meant picturable — drawn out before the imagination as a picture — then, cer- tainly, the immaterial cannot be conceived ; but, if by conceivable be meant, supposed to exist, then the immaterial can be conceived. Who ever saw, or can picture, the form, or color, or weight, of force, of thought, of memory, of hope, of fear, of love, of conscience, or of that of which these are manifes- tations? The simple fact is, we know these to exist, and as existing, we know that they proclaim a real- ity ; but a reality of which we cannot predicate any of the things we predicate of material substance. There are, then, two universes, or two hemispheres of one universe— the great material realm and the more exalted spiritual realm. One is inert, power- less, unconscious, but beautiful of form and color, varied in texture. and motion, massive and magnifi- cent ; the other has none of these, but is essential life, power, and consciousness. 56 BEYOND THE GRAVE. The self-conscious subject must be a self-centered, indivisible unit. Were it the body, or any part of it — say the brain — each part must be a sharer of the consciousness, and, in that case, it might be divided and subdivided, but this is impossible. The subject is a simple indivisible unit, which retains its identity permanently and unchangeably. The only things of which consciousness takes note are, thought, feeling, and volition ; and it notes these as states of the self- conscious subject, and notes nothing else of him. Thus, consciousness discloses simply a spirit. The self perceives form in objectives and other qualities, as hardness, color, gravity, and such things; but these it neither perceives nor is conscious of as pre- dicates of itself, or as in any proper sense belong- ing to the self-conscious subject. The self is free — it originates its own acts from within. It is conscious of the power of alternative action. This is a quality which no mere machine can possess, and which can never be predicated of matter as such. The power points to a unitary subject, and the consciousness is that the subject possessing it is one and indivisible, and identical through all its successive exercises. Each free act is the act of the same subject, and the series has no other relation than this, that they are the self- determined acts of the same being. There are other phases of the argument which we omit, deeming what has now been said suf- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. S7 ficient to establish the point in hand : Man is a spirit. The theory of common sense, thus announced in consciousness, and deducible by the reason and for- tified by the deepest philosophy yet attained, has also the sanction of revelation. The distinction is there clearly, frequently, and conspicuously made ; indeed, if the doctrine be not true the Bible is there- by shown to be fundamentally false. It appears in the exordium of Genesis, and is reiterated in the peroration of the Apocalypse, and pervades the whole volume. " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul." That the distinction is here made is plain. There is an organism of dust, and an inbreathed soul. " Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul : but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Matt, x, 28. It makes nothing against this, that the word soul is sometimes synonymous with breath or natural life. It is used in both senses, but its common signification is the equivalent of spirit, person, self, as distinct from the body. All readers of the holy Scriptures know that they maintain the distinction throughout with invariable consistency, and the spirit is always the person. It is the spirit 58 BEYOND THE GRAVE. that was created in the image of God ; that was put under law ; that had power to transgress ; that sinned and fell ; that is to give account to God ; that receives revelations. fC It is the spirit for whonO q atonement is made ; to whom pardon is offered ; who receives forgiveness and peace ; whose future is depicted in such impressive terms ; for the loss of which worlds would be no compensation ; whose salvation induced the divine incarnation. The body, throughout, holds a subordinate rank, and is made account of simply as an appendage of the spirit. If the Bible is divine the doctrine is true; and we have seen that it stands in its own right also. The older and the newer revelation have one trend, and speak with one voice. Here we rest so much of the discussion as is concerned with the question, Is man i \ a spirit t Assuming that the point is well made, we are prepared to advance to the main question, Is there evidence that he survives death ? But time will not permit us to enter upon that point now. It will be the subject-matter of the next lecture. At this point we rest the discussion for the present. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 59 LECTURE II. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. DOES the personal being, the spiritual self, perish with the destruction of its home, or does it become helpless with the overthrow of its machine? Many assert that it does. We will now adduce some of the reasons for believing the opposite. When you take the wires of the cage apart you do not hurt the bird, but help it. You let it out of its prison. How do you know that death does not help me when it takes the wires of my cage down ? that it does not release me, and put me into some better place, and better condition of life ? It is certain that no one knows that death is dis- astrous. It seems so, because it breaks present and valued plans, mars and wounds the affections, but possibly it is a great advantage. You see me up to the moment of death. Then I vanish from your sight. You cannot tell whither I go. When my body was alive you only knew of my existence by changes which I wrought in it and by it ; now that it is dead, I can make no more use of it. So much appears, nothing more. That I cease to exist is an 60 BEYOND THE GRAVE. unwarranted conclusion. There may be facts which point to the conclusion that I do not. But it is said, that if there is no proof that I cease to exist, at least it is certain that I become impo- tent ; that, as when alive, I could only act through the body; now that it is dead, I cannot act at all. This is an unwarranted assumption. In fact, for all that is known, I may be able to act with greater freedom and power. Death may introduce me to new conditions, of more noble and exalted forms of activity. The body may be to the spirit what the musical instrument is to the musician — probably is. What is the musical instrument to the musician ? It is the instrument from which he evolves to ex- ternal observation what is in him. You destroy the instrument, and you make it impossible for the mu- sician to evolve the music to external ears like yours ; but do you touch the musician himself, or destroy the music in him, when you destroy the instrument upon which he plays? Do you destroy the player necessarily ? Certainly not. How do you know that the case here is not one exactly like that? You have a lover. He or she comes, in the living instrument, in the magnetic touch, smile, glance of the eye, flush of the cheek — comes invested with warm flesh, and blood, and thrilled and thrill- ing nerves ; these are in the instrument, as the elec- tric spark is in the galvanic pile, so that its touch re- veals him. Take the instrument away ; are you sure MAN A SPIRITUAL BEIXG. 6 1 that you have destroyed the lover? Are you sure that you have touched that deeper being, who, though invisible and impalpable, even when pres- ent, nevertheless makes you feel him, and thrills and transports you with proof of his invisible love ? You have taken away the instrument through which he came and communicated with you ; but, possi- bly, you have put him in a condition by the change to communicate with somebody else in some other world, and, under other condition, to communicate again with yourself when you advance to higher de- velopment. There is no evidence, and no man can turn to a single proof, that the spirit, though it uses the body now, yea, even though now it is dependent on the body, will be so ultimately and in all stages of its life. The present earthly body was formed to bring us into relations with gross externality, and by means of that as media ', with other spirits like us, now invested with flesh ; and it serves that end ex- cellently well. But there are abundant reasons to be- lieve that there are higher ends to which these pre- liminary experiences are subsidiary; and that finally, that which was of use during this earthly state of ex- istence would by longer continuance become a hin- derance, shutting us away from those other spirits with whom we are to live, or these same spirits when their place and condition are changed. We are not able to do without it now, and we might not be able to do with it then. The telescope brings the 62 BEYOND THE GRAVE. distant star to us; but remove us to the star, and it would hinder our seeing it. I cannot see you without eyes, you cannot hear me without ears. There are certain things for the accomplishment of which we have bodies ; but there are some things that I can do without eyes, or with- out ears, or without any functional service of the sen- sorium. I know that in all activity the sensorium — the body— is always so related to the mind that what- ever the mind does, being in the body, and using the body, in some form the body touches it. But I go into my study, or I wander off into the woods; I shut my eyes, stop my ears, dull my senses, lock all the doors, go into my dumb-house, that is now all insu- lated from the universe, and sit down in my cham- ber of meditation. I pass up and stand before God, and worship and adore him. I look back over the storied memories of a lifetime. I enter into schemes of philosophy ; I go through processes of reflection ; I feel the power of duty; I study, and am thrilled with the revelation of glory. I am in a vast world adapted to me, where I do not have to consider the questions— the low, base, earthly questions— that anchor me down when I come back into the world, "What about dinner to-morrow?" "What about a suit of clothes?" "What about the field or work- shop?" I have got out of all that, and away from all that, showing that I live in two worlds. I live two lives. I live in a lower world of sense, that I MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 63 must use in order that my machine may be kept in order and vigor. I have to raise corn, wheat, fruits — not because I want these things — I, that is, my true self, do not need them. I cannot use them, but my machine requires them ; it has a digestive apparatus made for them. I have nothing of the kind. They are adapted to build bone and flesh, and other tis- sue. My machine is made out of these, and needs a factor of them. I put my machine to work to cultivate them, and store them up for future use ; but it is all on the machine's account — for me only that I may have a good instrument for my use. The factories of the world, and commerce of the world, and almost all kinds of labor and mechan- ism, are for the machine, and their use is limited by and perishes with it : but there is a world where I live ; it has no factories, or plows, or railroads — has no need for them. It is the world of spirits, of God, and angels, and immortal men ; the world of truth, and beauty, and love, and worship ; the world of eternal friendships, of eternal progress in personal unfolding ; of joy without sorrow, where there ib no pain, or tears, or death ; where there is no need of the sun or moon, " for the Lord God is the light of it." I feel its attraction now. I am consciously drawn toward it. I seem now to hear the deep diapason, the roll of its deathless music. That is my world, and I am certain to go to it. Some day I shall drop the machine and take wing. 64 BEYOND THE GRAVE. This higher life of reflection, of memory, of affec- tion, of worship, of love of the beautiful and good, of communion with truth, and with spirits of like sympathies, the grandest and best activities, may be carried forward out of a body, and certainly with great advantage without such a body as this. Since the preceding lecture my attention has been called to two points raised in the minds of several intelligent and candid hearers. I was not at all surprised that they were raised. I can, of course, only make a brief reference to them. One note suggested that the argument presented in the former lecture seemed to prove too much, in that it proved a spiritual nature in all inferior ani- mals, the assumption being that these exhibited thought in the same way that man does. Now I cannot go into a discussion about instinct, but will furnish some hints that may serve as data, upon which you may proceed. A hand-organ that grinds out accurately six or ten tunes expresses just as much intelligence as the lady who should sit at the piano and play the tunes. If there is any intelligence in the tune, or underlying the tune, it underlies the tune performed by the hand-organ just as much as the tune performed on the instrument by the living being. The difference is this : the hand-organ has intelli- gence in it that is not its own, but is the intelligence of the man who made it. The tune played upon the instrument has a personal intelligence in it, and MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 6$ it is the intelligence of the person who performs the tune. Now when we look into the world of animal creations there is unmistakable intelligence displayed by every animal, from the most inferior microscopic insect to the highest animal organization. But the question is, whether it is the personal property of the animal, or whether it has been concreted in it from an intelligence outside. I shall not undertake to discuss that question. I, however, have an opin- ion about it ; and it is, that in so far as instinctive action is personal, it is from the divine personality — ■ all instinctive action is divine action in some form. If any man can convince me that a bee passes through personal processes of self-consciousness, and reflection, and thought, when it makes the most perfect piece of work ever turned out in this world, in the most perfect conformity to mathemat- ical principles, as the mechanic does when he makes a watch, I will believe that the bee is as much a person as he is. But if the bee acts under the guid- ance of some other intelligence, I will believe that the bee is no more a person than the hand-organ. That is all I will say about that. The second point of difficulty raised, is upon a matter to which I attach very great importance, that of the discrete existence of the soul as distinct from the body. The argument advanced on that point I believe is conclusive. I have not heard it called in question, but my answer to the assumption 66 BEYOND THE CRAVE. that the soul is dependent upon the body for the performance of its functions, another question en- tirely which I raised, it is thought was not clear. I am asked still further to relieve the point. I dwell, therefore, for a moment upon it. That the soul is dependent upon the human or- ganism for its activity in the present state, to almost the entire extent, is beyond all question. The soul comes into the possession, or first use, of its power through the body, and never could come to know itself, or to have any thought at all, so far as we know, but by its connection with the body. Through the sensorium the sensible world is mediated to the indwelling spirit ; it becomes cognizant of external things, and thus it has first activity ; it sees, or hears, or touches, and is set a-going. But for that it never would be set a-going, so far as we know. It is another fact that when the body, which is the instrument through which the mind acts, becomes diseased, it suffers in its power of action. A blow upon the head — and that has been used a great deal by those who think the brain secretes thought — a blow upon the head may result in perfect un- consciousness and total inactivity of spirit. So far as we are cognizant, all diseases which affect the substance of the brain — softening of the brain, or any thing of that kind — will affect the activity of the soul. That is beyond all question. Now there is a question remaining — Whether this fact proves MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 67 that the soul is dependent entirely upon the organ- ism, or whether it is partially dependent upon it in it? present condition ; whether, if it were taken out of the body, it might not carry on its processes better than it does in the body? That is a point which is not at all settled, and we have no means of settling it, except upon general inference. But let us re- member that the body is the mediator of activity to the soul simply with relation to the external world. So far as we know it serves no purpose at all toward the supersensible world. It helps me to see, it helps me to hear, it helps me to feel ; but these all relate, to the material world ; and, so far as we can see, the body mediates no other form of ac- tivity to the soul. The argument in support of the immortality of the soul, founded on the mutations of animal life, has been thus forcibly stated by Lord Brougham, in his "Discourse on Natural Theology:" " The strongest of all arguments, both for the separate existence of mind and for its surviving the body, remains, and it is drawn from the strictest induction of facts. The body is constantly undergoing change in all its parts. Probably no person of the age of twenty has one single particle in any part of his body which he had at ten, and still less does any portion of the body he was born with continue to exist in or with him. All that he before had has entered into new combinations, forming parts of 68 BEYOND THE GRAVE. other men, or of animals, or of vegetable or mineral substances, exactly as the body he now has will afterward be resolved into new combinations after his death. Yet the mind continues one and the same, ' without change or shadow of turning.' If the strongest argument to show that the mind per- ishes with the body, nay, the only argument, be, as it indubitably is, derived from the phenomena of death, the fact to which we have been referring af- fords an answer to this. For the argument is, that we know of no instance in which the mind has ever been known to exist after the body. Now, here is exactly the same instance desiderated, it being manifest that the same process which takes place on the body, more suddenly, at death, is taking place more gradually but as effectually in the result, during the whole of life, and that death itself does not more completely resolve the body into its ele- ments, and form it into new combinations, than living fifteen or twenty years destroys, by like reso- lution and combination, the self-same body And yet, after all those years have elapsed, and the former body has been dissipated and formed into new combinations, the mind remains the same as before, exercising the same memory and conscious- ness, and so preserving the same personal identity, as if the body had suffered no change at all. Here, then, we have that proof so much desired — the existence of the soul after the dissolution of the MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 69 bodily frame with which it was connected. The two cases cannot, in any soundness of reasoning, be dis- tinguished ; and this argument, therefore — one of pure induction — derived partly from physical sci- ence through the evidence of our senses, partly from psychological science by the testimony of our con- sciousness, appears to prove the possible immortality of the soul almost as rigorously as if one were to rise from the dead." I yesterday called your attention to the fact that when the mind has once been started, when it has been set with ideas of external things through per- ception, it comes to be conscious of itself, and be- comes able to act toward the supersensible world. I return to that. If the position be true, it will show that there is a kind of spirit-activity that is inde- pendent in its on-going, though dependent for its start. The organism initiates one form of activity, sensation ; this gives rise to another form — that of re- flection. By the first, the spirit becomes conscious; by the second, it exercises its own faculties. The first form of activity is generated in it as a passive or re- ceptive subject — is from without; the second, it orig- inates from within as an active, free, spontaneous subject : and if I could dislodge the soul, it is very possible that all kinds of activity could go on with- out the body. But since I cannot dislodge it, it is impossible for me to prove directly that the soul can go on without the body. How can I prove that 70 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. a soul can do any thing out of the body when I only know it in the body? I have shown that there is no counter-proof. I have shown, also, that there is reasonable ground for the belief that its activity may be continued, and possibly improved, when dislodged. This is as far as the argument from reason can go. But revelation, and on it we rely for positive proof, when proved to be such, is a good witness, and faith in its testimony becomes reason- able, and non-faith irrational. Its testimony on the point is clear. But that which we know now on the point by reason, as we have shown, is that the soul while in the body is able to carry on a kind of activ- ity which the body does not directly mediate. All self-consciousness, all reflection, all meditation, all worship, all conception of right and wrong, of truth and beauty, of the spiritual Avorld, is without the me- diation of the body, directly. I infer that if I were delivered from the body, and placed in that body not made with hands eternal in the heavens — called by revelation a spiritual body — I should be gainer in respect of these things. The facts all seem to show that, and beyond all these I have no power to go. I stand simply upon the position that I have shown a discrete existence of the soul ; that it is dis- tinct from the body ; that at present it is shrined in the body; that at present a large part of its activity is connected with the body as a sensorium ; that at present a part of its activity, and the best part, is MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 7 1 distinct and different from that which is mediated directly by the sensorium. I had reached the point in the former lecture as to how death affects the person. I had conceded that it destroys the organism, the external man ; that, so far as seems to sense, it is a total destruc- tion of the person, since the body is the only part of the person that appears to sense, and it appears to be totally destroyed. I raised the question wheth- er there is certainty that the higher personality — the spirit which I had found to be distinct from the body — was overthrown with the body. I had answered, that of that no man could give information. No man can prove that it is. He has no more proof that it is than we have that it is not. It is an open question. Sense gives us no light upon it. I wish to dwell for a moment longer on this last point. I stand by the death-bed of a beloved friend — a friend I have known as dwelling in the body, now prostrate with disease. I hold communion with him, with the consciousness that the communion is not with the form that lies upon the bed, but with a spirit that is in that form. While I am commun- ing, suddenly the machine stands still ; the pulse ceases to beat ; a quiver, and all is stilled. The eye ceases to express the personality that I was com- muning with. I am conscious that my friend has gone. He has vanished away. Whether has he gone ? What has become of him ? There is the 72 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. house, still beautiful, not yet in ruins; but the in- habitant has disappeared from my reach. I did not see him go. I was alert — I was under the highest strain of attention — my affections were eager; I closely watched every motion, but I did not see the disappearance. Whether it is extinction, subsi- dence of being, escape, flight, I cannot tell, and no- body else can tell, for no human eye ever yet saw what became of the spirit. Now how am I to find out — since the vanishing was one that I could not observe, since there are no facts that give me any in- formation — how can I find out what has become of my friend ? whether there is annihilation, an over- throw of existence, or whether it is a mere change that has placed him beyond my reach? I stated that there are two ways only by which you can get any light upon that subject ; one is to consider facts, facts of reason, not facts of sense, which may help to an inference, or, a communication from some person who is more perfectly informed in the premises than we can be by observation. The per- son himself, for instance, if he should in some form re-appear, so that I could know it was he, that would convince me that the better part of him was not overthrown in the catastrophe of death. Or if some other being, of an invisible realm, should come to me and testify that he was once upon earth, and such a being as I am, and that he had survived death, and that of his knowledge the soul of man MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 7$ does survive death — if he could give to me evidence that he is a true witness — that he is what he pre- tends to be, an inhabitant of the invisible world — that he is to be believed — then I should have some adequate ground of a judgment in the premises. If a messenger should come from God, and he should communicate the truth to me, and should furnish me the evidence that he is a messenger from God — just in proportion to the strength of that evidence I should be constrained to believe. It is precisely here where the biblical proof comes in, which I shall notice after awhile. I know that there are ghost- seers and table-rappers, and that various supposed communications are made to men. But I, for my- self, have never seen a ghost, and have never been in communication with such a spiritual manifesta- tion as to convince me that it was a spirit from the other world that made it. Therefore, I have no proof; if any of you have that kind of evidence, that is clear and conclusive to your reason, why, that settles the question for you. I am discussing it for that great body of humanity that has not been so favored. In the very nature of the subject, except in one of the two ways I have named, it is impossible that future immortal existence should be a matter of knowledge to the human mind. To lift it from the realm of faith to that of knowledge the mind itself must be endowed with a new faculty — the faculty of 10 74 BEYOND THE GRAVE. prevision. Things of the future can only be known as they are seen by a mind that sees the future. We have no such power. Our only sources of informa- tion are induction and testimony, and it is for this reason that our conviction can never rise above faith. The grounds of faith may be more or less assuring, but it must still be simply faith. The grounds must be one or both of two kinds, as al- ready stated; first, induction from facts; second, testimony by a competent witness. The proofs are chiefly the following : — First, I exist — I am. This I know. It is not a matter of conjecture merely, or of well-founded be- lief only. It is a matter of knowledge. It can nei- ther be disputed nor proved. To dispute it, is to assert it. It is more certain than any proof. I am a living being whose very essence is to think, to feel, to will. I should become nothing if these at- tributes were withdrawn. Now my first proof that I am to continue to live is, that I now am a living essence. Well, you are ready to say, that is a large inference, and not at all warranted by the premises. Let us see. The principle underlying the argument is this — whatever exists contains the probability that it will continue to exist forever. Is that true ? At first approach it seems utterly baseless — preposter- ous ; in violent contradiction of well-known facts. Closer scrutiny leads to a milder denial. The closest study will show that it is probably true. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 75 There are only two kinds of being. God, who is eternal, self-existent ; and the being that he has set up, created, and which exists by his will. The argument is this. Since God is the only source of being, and since whatever exists exists solely be- cause he holds it in being, it will continue to exist until he destroys it, or withdraws the being which he imparted. Non-existence of a created thing can only be reached through his agency. No created being has any more power to abrogate its existence than it had to cause it ; and no created being has power to abolish any other. created being. There is no more possibility for a finite and dependent exist- ence to vacate its own being, or any other being, than there is to establish it. This, then, follows — that no reason can be shown why a thing existing should be suffered ever to reach non-existence, un- less some instance of annihilation can be alleged. But there is no such instance. It is conceded that neither scientific discovery nor experience has been able to adduce a single case. No agent or power has been ascertained which is capable of expunging an atom of any description from the universe ; and all research has failed to show that the Almighty has ever withdrawn the gift of being from any thing he has created. All evidence points in one direc- tion, namely, that annihilation is no part of God's plan. But if I have no power to end my own exist- ence, and if no creature has power to eradicate my 76 BEYOND THE GRAVE. being, and if all the evidence shows that God never withdraws the gift of existence from the meanest and most insignificant thing, then there is no rea- son to suppose that, having commenced to exist, I shall ever cease to be. Is it said the argument proves too much, and, therefore, proves nothing ? Let us see. That where- in it is said to prove too much is this, that it proves that all animals are immortal, even the meanest in- sects. Some have seemed to hold this doctrine. We do not. There is not a particle of ground for the imagination that any animal, not even the sim- ply animal part of man, is destined to immortality. But is not this in contradiction of what has just been said ? Not as we understand it. The thing posited is this : Essences or substances of being are permanent, and, so far as we can discern, are destined to abide^forever. Forms and compositions of things change and pass away, but their essences remain. The change of form is not the obliteration of the substance. An animal is but a form of mat- ter peculiarly endowed — a living form. The life which animates it is but a mode of creative activ- ity ; its apparent intelligence is purely automatic, and not personal ; a form of impulse from without. There is contained in the animal no subject of which these impulses and attributes can be predicated. When the animal dies, there is no evidence that any particle of being has been obliterated. The form MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 77 has disappeared, but the substance which composed it has taken on another form, or entered into some new complex. The life-force and its cluster of au- tomatic activities, instinctive impulses, has been withdrawn ; but the being which inspired or posited them, and in whom alone they had ground, is God, who abides forever. Thus it does not appear that in the varying forms which come upon the scene and vanish away, there is any more obliteration of being than there is in the cursory and vanishing combinations of the kaleidoscope ; nor any more loss of essence than there is when a steam-engine is taken to pieces. The power which moved it is not annihilated, nor are its elements. Simply, a change has occurred in the relation of the parts. But is it said, Would not these same facts apply to man, and prove that his case differs nothing from that of the animal? If death changes his form as it does that of the animal, and he disappears as really as the animal, wherein is the difference? How is it that we must conceive that he still exists and the ani- mal does not ? We have admitted that to mere sense the cases seem precisely alike. But are they? They are to a certain extent similar, and to the same extent the result of death is similar. But we have shown that man is a spirit. This the animal is not. So far forth as man is a form he vanishes and disappears, not to return ; so far forth as his was an automatic life, the force which played in it 78 BEYOND THE GRAVE. and constituted it is withdrawn, but so far forth as he is a spirit, the destruction of the form and the withdrawment of the automatic life do not neces- sarily affect the integrity of that, and nothing short of annihilation can ; and that it is ever resorted to, there is no proof. In every other case decomposi- tion is all that is manifest. We see no reason to suppose any thing more in this case. But decom- position does not impair essence ; and decomposi- tion is only possible where there is a complex. The spirit is not a complex, but a simple. No agent can take its parts asunder, for it has no parts; nothing can change its form, for it is formless as thought, or feeling, or volition, though it may always dwell in a form. No instrument is keen enough of edge to divide it, no lens has power enough to reveal it. The only effect death can have on it is to take down its house, and spoil the in- strument by which now it shows that it is, and where it is. Whether it goes into another house, and acquires a better instrument, is the question we are considering. What we claim is, that so far as any facts go, existence is guarantee of permanence, and so the spirit, we may believe, survives death — is immortal.* Before I notice the next argument, I want to in- terject an illustration here. You see I am making a great deal — every thing — of the fact that I am not * For further on this point turn to note A in the Appendix. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 79 my body. That is every thing to me, and 1 want to return to that for a moment. I will take an illustration. Illustrations do not prove much, but they serve to help us sometimes. It shall be taken from the art or science of telegraphy. This is one of the most beautiful and wonderful arts ever dis- covered. The instrument of this art shall serve to illustrate our subject. The point we have made much of is, that the universe is dual, comprising two discrete and discriminate realms, one material, the other spiritual ; one visible and palpable, the other incognizable by sense. Man is sometimes said to be the isthmus between the two. One side of him belongs to the supersensible realm, the other side of him belongs to the sensible. Looking out of one window you look up to God and the great spiritual family, and looking out at the other win- dow you look down to the dust. He combines the two worlds. The telegraph furnishes a beautiful illustration of the thought. The arrangement, you all know, for telegraphing is, first, there is a gen- erator of electricity — a galvanic battery — an ar- rangement for the accumulation of electric force. Now electricity is matter, but it is the most attenu- ate and fine form of matter. It is as far as you can go toward the spiritual world in matter, if, indeed, there is any approach. It is the boundary line be- tween the two hemispheres. Starting from that al- most spiritual fluid you pass backward until you 8o BE YOND THE GRA VE. come to denser forms of matter— the wire and the battery. Let us construct a telegraphic line from Fair Point westward across the continent, the Pa- cific Ocean, the continents of Asia and Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, and from our coast down to Fair Point again. Here we have a bridge that goes around the world. Here we have an invisible courser that is very much like a spirit, imprisoned in this jar. We have a wire by which we can con- nect this bridge around the world with this impris- oned or stabled courser. Sitting by is a man to work the instrument. First, an outer man, as gross as the galvanic battery or wire, or, midway between them, a material structure. Second, a man, a real man, that thinks. This real man is brought, by signs, written or spoken, into communion with an- other real man who stands near by in a form which is seen, but himself is not seen. He makes known a thought of his which he wishes to convey to an- other man who sits in an adjoining room. The man presiding over the instrument receives it, un- derstands it, proving that the two are similar in essence and faculty, though both are invisible. He saddles the thought on this invisible courser, starts it on the bridge, and it flies around the world in a few moments of time, and drops itself into the other man, and is as real in him as it was in the author. The same thing that this invisible man had in him, in his invisible personality, is carried by that invisi- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 8 1 ble courser on the bridge of metal around the globe, and deposited in the other mind at the other end of the pole of the connection. What is it that was conveyed ? Did it ever have any material quality ? If not, has that any material quality which gave and which received it ? Now, I hold that in that fact the thinker and the thought are as real as the wire and electricity, and that thus we connect the two worlds together, knowing no more of the existence of the one than of the other. I know the existence of that thinker and that thought, and of that of the recipient thinker and thought, just as well and dis- tinctly as I know the existence of the wire that car- ries the message. I know the one by sense-observa- tion, I know the other by the law of thought re- vealed in my own consciousness, and no man can disenchant me of the evidence of the distinct exist- ence of the persons any more than he can of the other facts. Now, my first argument is, that this personality will remain in the event of death, unless he is anni- hilated, and that of that there is no evidence at all. I challenge it from the history of all observation ; I challenge all scientists; I challenge all vulgar minds; I challenge the race to bring me the proof that a single atom of matter that God has created, or a o single atom of spirit from the beginning of crea- tion until now, has ever perished. The second argument I derive from the nature oi 11 82 BEYOND THE GRAVE. the human soul ; that is, from its faculties. Now what is a human soul? What is the law of a hu- man soul? I have said it is a spiritual substance, whose faculty it is to think, to feel, and to will. It is a peculiarity of this soul that it is a growing something ; that it begins in almost nothing, and grows and unfolds its power according to a law ; and the point I want to call your attention to is, that there is no assigned limit to that unfolding power. Perhaps on this ground there is a very young babe. Let us look at that babe for an illustration. When it is first placed upon the mother's breast it is to her mind a most beautiful thing, but to nobody else's mind, for a young babe is never beautiful — it be- comes so afterward. A mother's enthusiasm covers it with a halo, and to her heart and eye it is more beautiful than an angel when it is laid upon her bosom. But if you should go there after two or three days and look down into the face of the child you would find simply a lump of flesh ; no indica- tions of any thing else ; for a baby's eye has no more intelligence in it than a doll's eye — not a particle. There it lies, unintelligent and incapable of expres- sion, breathing and nursing at the mother's breast, as purely a little animal as ever there was in the forests of the world. But go forward fifteen days from the time it was put on the mother's breast — it is yet small, and its life imperfectly developed, but do you not see somebody looking out of the MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 83 window at you ? Do you not see that something has come there with an interrogation point?* Do you not see that there is something beginning to feel out with a kind of wonder into the universe ? This is a baby's soul. It does not know any thing, does not love any thing; but it begins to try and know, and to put forth the first fibers or tendrils of feeling. Stay there a few months. See now, as it looks into the mother's face, a smile like an angel's comes over its countenance ; it lifts up its little velvet fingers and touches the mother's face with a stroke that thrills with strange affection. It is a baby's soul. It has just begun to do what a baby's soul can do — to unfold itself. Now you have been accus- tomed to trace the growth of the body as the measure of the tailor and of the shoemaker increases, and so you call your baby half-grown, full-grown. When it gets to be six feet high, and broad and strong, it is a full-grown man, you say. I call your attention to another growth. The growth that you have been observing is the growth of an animal, of a machine, a growth by digesting food and exercise ; but have you observed another growth of that invisible baby that was put in your arms — a growth of knowledge ? It began to inquire about home, about the people, and about the things of the town, and became ac- * We do not mean by this that the spirit is not present until the babe is several days old, but that it does not manifest itself by any sign. 84 BEYOND THE GRAVE. quainted with the family, and with the neighbor- hood, and with the neighboring gossip, and then its powers were active and ready for use, and you thought it was time to start it to school ; and it has learned to read, and studied the simple con- struction of language, and now it is pondering a problem in arithmetic. Its face is corrugated, it is intent on finding out something; and now it has traveled through arithmetic, and up through mathe- matics, until it could read all the deep things of mathematics. It has plowed through science. It has investigated the globe. It has become ac- quainted with its geography, and with its geology, and with its natural history, and with its human history, and it has ascended into the stars and has mastered astronomy, and has become a great, wide, and mighty thinker, full of truth, full of power, full of new faculty. It is a soul that has been growing up, and unfolding, and expanding in grander form than the body itself. Well, the body reaches its stature — sometimes it is an abnormal body, gets very large, but there is an ordinary and fixed stand- ard — the body reaches its stature, and then it be- gins to go back : but this other part does not reach its stature ; and herein it differs from every thing else that is found on the face of the globe. The great California trees, three thousand years old, will reach their stature. All animals will come to their growth ; all living things will culminate and decay. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEIXG. 85 Not so with the soul. When it learns the alphabet it is just ready to begin to learn to read; when it learns to read it is just getting ready to think of the meaning of words ; when it learns the exist- ence of things it is just ready to penetrate and in- vestigate them, and find out deeper things about them. And if it should live on a thousand years it would still be ascending, step by step, upon this great pyramid of being ; and if it should live ten million years, this power of expansion, of growth, of enlargement, which ever increases as the spirit enlarges, will lead it on. When I behold it ascend- ing that magnificent highway stretching from the cradle to eternity; from earth to the throne of God ; widening in its faculties, increasing in its power of love, and thought, and perception of truth, for ever and ever, I am constrained to ask for what were such powers bestowed, if not to reach their normal development, but to do that must require immortal- ity of being. God does nothing in vain. When he gives a power it is for a purpose, it is that it may reach an end. Now what I argue is this: Since he has put in my soul a germ that can grow to eternity, he means that it shall grow to eternity. I hold that the argument is on my side ; that the philosophy of the mind shows that it was made, not for a day, but for eternity. The improvidence of God in stopping it would be like the improvidence of an artist who 86 BEYOND THE GRAVE. should go into the studio and commence making a beautiful specimen of art, clothing it with utmost richness, and utmost perfection of beauty, and then just when he got it fairly set up — sufficiently ad- vanced to show what it was to be — should burn it up, and should repeat that day after day. Suppose a man should work hard to make a fortune, and, as soon as he made it, should put it into the fire and burn it to ashes, would you not say he was insane? Suppose you found any maker of any thing, who, just when his creations began to be worthy, should dash them to pieces, what would you think of his wisdom ? If it were a work that had infinite possi- bilities of good in it, and he should pulverize it just when realization of the infinite possible good was reached, what would you think then ? If, still further, he had awakened great hope and expectation con- cerning the possible good, and then should crush the whole in a moment from mere caprice, what would you think then? Would not all intelligence pronounce it a cruel — nay, worse — an insane whim ? The ar- gument from the nature of the soul is precisely this. The attributes of the soul thus manifested do not reach their complete measure of development in this life, nor in any measurable time, so that it does never come to its full stature, and could not within any limited period ; the inference is, that it will continue to exist hereafter and forever. Capacity implies an end equal to its measure. The principle involved MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 87 is, God does nothing needless. When he bestow? a power it is that it may be improved. This is proved to be a fact throughout the entire circle of nature in every case, man excepted. No seed of any vegetable contains a latent force which may not find full expression in the condition of its earthy exist- ence. Its bloom, and fruit, and stature may reach completeness. There remains in it no potentiality undeveloped. The same is true of every animal. Its earthly life furnishes it the full opportunity for perfect expression. Were it to live to eternity it could become no more than it is in the hours or years, as the case may be, of its life. The evolution is perfect. Nature furnishes no instance of a power which is useless or thwarted. Blasted germs and premature decays are no contradiction of this prin- ciple. The earth furnishes to them the conditions for perfect expression. There was the opportunity for their attaining their end. That they were cut short does not imply the creation of capacity in vain, or to no end, since in many cases they reach the end, and the object of their creation is an- swered. Nor is their failure to come to complete development in any sense a calamity. There is no real waste in the case. Man furnishes the solitary exception to this law. He is the only argosy that, freighted with vastest wealth, is sent out upon the ocean of existence at most lavish expenditure, that it may be stranded upon the nearest reef, and its 88 BEYOND THE GRAVE. splendid jewelry be sunk in the infinite abyss. Why such expensive folly? To what end such waste? Why create such wealth of possibility and dash it to atoms in the instant of its creation ? It is incon- ceivable that the Infinite should be guilty of such unthrift. The madness of such a deed is even greater than we have supposed. He does not even finish the work, but destroys it in the process of making — spoils the harvest in the bloom. He cre- ates powers which expand as they age, which gain wealth as they are used, every exercise of which becomes a history, every forth-putting an eternal psalm ; — powers that retain all they ever gain, and advance toward the Infinite, a great soul of powers ; which at some time would pass angelic stature in wealth of wisdom and knowledge, and would be- come a universe of grandeur and happiness in itself; a soul which, with all its glory of being and felicity, would pour forth all its wealth in adoring worship of its author; a soul whose bliss would almost rival his own ! Is it possible to imagine that the Infinite did create such a being, and open before himself and before it such a prospect, and nourish it, with the idea only that he might dash the beautiful vase and scatter all its incense in one mad moment? Add to this view of the soul's faculties facts found in its essential nature pointing to immor- tality — its dissatisfaction with every thing earthly, and its restlessness in view of its relations with this MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 89 world. I make the assertion without qualification, that not one of you has ever been completely satis- fied with what you have done or with what you are. All ages, and conditions, and circumstances in life are represented in this congregation, but I know that not one of you is completely satisfied and happy in the things of this world. Your souls are fluttering within you like caged birds. You are restless seek- ers after rest. If we look out into the material world, we are con- scious of a mighty contrast between man and other creatures. The little bird sings through the day, and is completely happy. At night it tucks its head under its wing, and is cradled by the wind on some swaying bough, in total oblivion to fear or remorse. The flocks and herds upon a thousand hills, the myriad forms of insect life, the finny tribes of the sea, all can find the end of their being, and rest in fullness of desire and satisfaction. But man, the masterpiece, the crown of creation — man alone — is restless and unsatisfied. He travels round the world, dips into every pleasure, seeks out all knowledge, wears every badge of honor, wields every scepter of power, and then lies down in utter disgust and de- spair, saying, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." And thus it is with some of us. We are not as happy as the animals around us — we are full of business — we choose pleasure — we study, travel, mingle with men, and yet our nature is not 12 9° BE YOND THE GRA VE. satisfied. There are vague, ever-craving wants with- in. Nothing suits the soul. All these things perish or grow stale with the using. They accomplish nothing. They bring nothing to us that we can hold. There is a lack in every thing that we touch or taste. A wanting and an ever-wanting of what is never, never, NEVER on earth to be found. " I envy that dog his happy lot," said a man who ruled the fashions of England. " I wish I had never mar- ried, or that I had died childless," said the great Augustus from the throne of the world. And he who had exactly computed all the advantages, and pleasures, and riches, and splendor of the world, found this to be the sum total : " Vanity of vani- ties, all is vanity." What is the moral significance of this dissatisfac- tion of the soul with the things of time and sense ? What means this restlessness of the human spirit? Tell me why the caged bird flutters against its prison bars, and I will tell you why the soul sick- ens of earthliness. That bird has wings, and wings were made to cleave the air, and soar in freedom to the sun. That soul is immortal— it cannot be fed with husks. The inspiration of the Almighty has given it understanding, and it struggles to get free from the emptiness of material things, and to lay hold upon its true food, and rest, and life. And these instinctive strugglings are proofs of immor- tality to those who think deeply. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 9 1 When we get down into the depths of the soul we find this conviction : Nothing is complete or completed here. These are but the beginnings of things that I see about me. All these powers, and graces, and virtues that I am gathering are but the preparatory conditions of a higher training and a higher life. These cravings, these aspirations, these deathless longings, are hints, prophecies, demonstra- tions of a fullness yet to be enjoyed and possessed by me. Eyes prove the possibilities of vision ; feet prove that God meant that man should walk ; the vocal organs show that man was made to speak and sing. So the soul's sense of incompleteness is the prophecy of a fullness somewhere within its reach. If we thus long for life and love eternal, it is likely there are the life and love to satisfy those claims. We could have no joy in God if we knew that he had created a human want with no adequate sup- ply. Life would be a cruel riddle to us without im- mortality to complete it. The high aspirations of the soul would be blasting mockeries if immortality was not to be their satisfaction. We feel, in our best hours, that we are only chil- dren playing with toys, and that maturity and man- hood must come in due time. I am nothing, but I feel that I have not begun to say the ten thousandth part of what is in my mind and heart to say. What I have to say may be of little consequence to others, but it is of great consequence to myself. I want to 9 2 BEYOND THE GRAVE. say it to relieve my own feelings, and to articulate the name, and the glory, and the goodness of God before his universe. Threescore years and ten will be altogether too short for me to tell my story to the world. I shall need the immortal years to com- plete this work, and so will you. And so immor- tality proves itself to me in a very easy and natural way. I feel that I was made to complete things. To accomplish only a mass of beginnings and attempts would be to make a total failure of life. Perfection is the heritage with which my Creator has endowed me, and since this short life does not give complete- ness, I must have immortal life in which to find it. When the springtime comes the birds of the North feel in their very bones an impulse to fly northward, and, under the inspiration of an instinct that they cannot resist, they travel hundreds of miles to find their northern haunts. Short of completeness, the human spirit, in its normal temper, feels mysterious influences drawing it toward a natural destiny of perfection, in which it can find all that is lacking here. O what a riddle life would be if it ended in death ! What a mockery all its secret aspirations and holy hopes ! How empty all the maxims of love, charity, and faith ! How tantalizing all the words and promises of God ! How completely un- settled all our ideas of his holiness, justice, and love ! What a stupendous failure, what a pitiful farce earth and humanity would be ! This yearn- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 93 ing after perfection and completeness is the soul's prophecy of its own immortality. It is the soul flut- tering its wings out into native air. 3. It longs for and has the prophecy in itself of im- mortality, both in its desires and fears : it is, there- fore, probably true. It is not pretended that the mere existence of hope or fear is to be regarded as evidences of the truth or reality of what is hoped or feared. Both these states we know may be evoked by the imagination. But the point we make is this : when these states spring spontaneously in every human breast ; when they are offsprings of nature, and not of education ; when they hold permanent sway over all men ; when they commence in early childhood and continue to old age ; when they dom- inate over all classes, and ages, and ranks, and con- ditions of men, and when they cannot be eradicated in a single case, they must be supposed to have a real cause ; springing eternal in the human breast, and holding ineradicable sway, they are shown to be of nature itself, and argue either that he who made us constitutes us so that we should be the inevitable victims of delusion, the pitiable prey of false hopes, and the tortured victims of unreal terrors, or, they point to reality. Which is the more reasonable con- clusion ? Is nature an organized lie ? Has our Cre- ator designed to delude us? Is the Almighty a fraud, snaring helpless creatures that he may amuse himself with their causeless hopes and terrors? The 94 BEYOND THE GRAVE. conclusion is inevitable, either this, or man will live after death. This argument is strengthened when we find not only that these feelings are of nature, coming unbidden to us, but that they are made to serve a practical purpose, showing that they are intro- duced into the plan of the Creator to serve an end. Conscience is an officer who, with utmost vigi- lance, warns of danger to estop from crime. When sin is purposed he menacingly points to future retribution ; when it is committed he relentlessly scourges with forebodings. What does it mean ? Are we to suppose that the Almighty is reduced to the miserable shifts of tricks and deceptive arts for the maintenance of his authority ? Or may we rather conclude that the sentinel is set to warn because there is danger? Which is the more creditable to the Maker, the supposition that the lure is real, or a cheat ; that the beacon is a scarecrow or a faithful warning? Did treachery and fraud ever so resemble truth ? The snare is set for prey, treachery aims at gain or revenge. What advantage can the Infinite propose to himself in so entrapping his dependent and confiding children? Would it not be more to his honor that he should make real what seems so manifestly wise and appropriate ? The inference that the objects of instruction, human hope and dread, are real, we think is reasonable, and we, there- fore, accept and believe the doctrine of the perma- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 95 nent existence of the soul, and its future suffering or joy, contingent upon its virtuous or vicious deeds here. The forecasting is true prophecy. I quote the words of one who has entered the unseen, and who has ere this tested the theory — Bidwell : — " Paul states a universal truth when he describes a natural man as ' being all his lifetime subject to bondage through fear of death.' This thought of death is always with man. Every-once-in-awhile it will rise up in our path and stare us in the face, and it makes cowards of the strongest of us. And this dread of death is not simply a negative argu- ment. Man every-where possesses an innate love of life. We all know what this means. There are powerful longings in our souls to live on, active, thinking, hoping, working, conquering as we do now, or more successfully. This love of life is com- mon to all ranks, classes, and conditions of men. And this love of life is felt by us often, when, to all appearances, life is shorn of every thing pleasant and desirable. And this fear of death is often felt with- out any clear sense of future retributions. Men cling to life because they love to live, and they shrink from death, not on account of the pangs of dying, or of the results that follow, but because they dread the thought of going out of existence — of being dead ! What is the significance of this love of life and fear of death ? I understand it to be a natural expression of that conviction of personal im- 96 BE YOND THE GRA VE. mortality which the inspiration of the Almighty has breathed into the human spirit. It is that love of self-poised, self-possessed existence which distin- guishes man from the brute, and lifts him above it. Here, then, is a proof of our immortality ; drawn, not from science, or books, or philosophy, but from the soul itself. It is a normal experience in the development of our nature, and it must be accept- ed as an intimation of the divine thought concern- ing us. " To this may be added the soul's ceaseless yearn- ing after the infinite and the eternal. If the soul were mortal and material it would find full satisfac- tion in the things of this world. It would be as contented as the beasts of the field or the fowls of the air. An animal is material, therefore matter will answer all the demands of its nature and satisfy its utmost desires — satisfied sensualities are its good. All beings find the center of their hap- piness in the fullness of the elements of their own nature. " If man is material lie will find perfect satisfac- tion in the things of sense. But what are the facts in the case ? This world never has, and never can, satisfy the desires of a single soul. Give it all the elements of earth, air, sea, and heaven, molded into any possible form, and it will grasp the whole, and pant for higher wealth. Why is this? The soul is not matter or connatural with matter. It is MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 97 spirit ; it came from God. His inspiration gave it understanding, therefore it can be satisfied alone in God. * In him we live, and move, and have our being.' His communion and love must be our only heaven. 'As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God : when shall I come and ap- pear before God ? ' The ability to think of God, to long for his communion, is a proof of immortality, for nothing but the immortal is equal to such a thought and longing." Who will may doubt, we cannot. 4. The divine character requires man's existence in the future in order to its own vindication. This, we think, is so on two grounds, to wit, the grounds both of goodness and justice. If immortality is a possible fact, and if it might result in the greatly increased happiness of the universe, we have every reason to suppose it would be bestowed. And it is doubtful if, on the whole, the creation of such a be- ing as man expresses goodness, if the grave bounds his possible existence. There is too much of misery and hardship crowded into life on earth to make it a boon, if it does not make way to something better. There can be no doubt that a being who has power and wisdom to originate such a creature as man, has the requisite power and ivisdom to perpetuate and greatly aggrandize his existence. Not to do it, is to becloud a?id call in question J lis be?ievolence, for what he has 13 9§ BEYOND THE GRAVE. already done. It may savor of harshness and irrev- erence, but we are constrained to feel that he might better have done nothing. Who can for a moment believe (as we with our imperfectness discern a pos- sible outcome so much more creditable) that he would stop at the very beginning of his work. The only possible excuse for this world is, that it is the precursor of a culmination whose glory will make amends for its present miseries. I am not unmind- ful that the world is beautiful, and that to multi- tudes of men this life has much real happiness, and that all men prefer rather to remain in it, than to depart from it. I do not dispute its possible good, its exquisite and exalted pursuits for some ; but, on the theory that it is a finality, its pleasures are too costly and rare, and its miseries too abounding and great. For the one or the few that ride upon the high places, too many millions walk with bleeding feet, and, what is infinitely worse, with bleeding hearts, along all the highways of the world. If there are no moral ends to be served by these scenes of suffering — if these capabilities of agony, and terrible facts of agony, are not incidental to some glorious outcome such as an immortal life will make possible ■ — they can be nothing other than the bootless inclu- sions of an unprincipled and cruel experiment of creative power. The grandest expression of God- head, power, and goodness the Infinite has given is the creation of man, with his dower of heart and in- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 99 tellect, if they may come after discipline and growth to the destiny which seems possible to them ; but, if the discipline is to end in extinction, creation fur- nishes no sadder spectacle of meaningless existence, and no more melancholy instance of endowment for useless pain. It was a terrible venture to make a human heart, with its keen susceptibilities. It will be justified only when it appears that it was created for a possible bliss, which to be real will lay eternity under tribute. But if benevolence requires a future life for man in order to its vindication, much more does justice. There is an essential and eternal distinction be- tween right and wrong. The failure to recognize it is the highest reproach that can be cast upon a moral being. No debasement is so great. Next to setting wrong before right, which is the quintes- sence of evil, is the making no distinction between them — the failure to discriminate in favor of good- ness. This shame and dishonor, in its most atro- cious form and disgrace, falls upon the administra- tor of the universe, if the present scene terminates his dealings with men. Earthly providence is a travesty of justice on any other theory than that it is a preliminary stage, which is to be followed by rectifications. Either there must be a future, or consummate injustice sits upon the throne of the universe. This is the verdict of humanity in all the ages. Sin is not punished, virtue is not rewarded, IOO BEYOND THE GRAVE. on earth ; on the contrary, the former is more often in honor, and the latter in dishonor. Justice may, for purposes of mercy or brighter ultimate manifes- tation, withhold for a time reward or deserved pun- ishment ; it may, for sufficient ulterior ends, allow ages to pass without self-vindicatory processes ; it may linger long and show infinite patience ; " the mills of God grind slow ;" he that holds eternity in his grasp has no need to hurry, but he cannot re- main silent forever. Ultimately he must come forth from " the clouds and darkness" which encircle his throne, and exhibit the precious jewelry of his eternal justice to adoring holiness and trembling guilt. Men and angels must come to see that, in their dark times, when inno- cence crouched before power, and goodness bled and died in the street, and when guilt pampered itself on the spoils of robbery and oppression and strode before men and over their prostrate forms with u eyes standing out with fatness" and a countenance of bloated pride, corrupting innocence, debauching helplessness, and filling the great wide earth with woe, and He that sat in the heavens said not a word, nor put forth a finger to stop it, and, so far as appeared, cared nothing about it — they must yet see that even then he was no uninterested observer, no indifferent spectator: that even then he was arrang- ing the heavy caissons of avenging wrath, which in due time he will draw forth, and in the desolation MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 10 1 that shall overtake the evil-doer, and the crown of magnificent glory that shall be set upon suffering goodness in the presence of the assembled uni- verse, it shall appear that he was always on the side of right, and from the beginning the utter and uncompromising foe of wrong. To make that demonstration men must stand again after death, and a new existence, under new conditions, with new assortments of work and order, must open in endless perspective before them. There it will ap- pear, as it otherwise never can, that God is both just and good. Let the curtain drop with Lazarus at the gate — a pauper, covered with sores, discard- ed, dying in want ; with Dives, rolling in wealth, faring sumptuously every day, having more than heart can wish, honored, praised, and loved of men ; the former the friend of virtue, the latter a patron of vice — let the curtain drop here, and never roll up again for the ages of eternity, and the universe might justly curse its Maker. But roll it up again ! Eternal Love will not permit this as the closing scene. Lo ! now angels are bearing on swift wings from yonder heaven — they come from the throne of God — love speeds them — they take the dead Lazarus on their arms — they mount with eager flight — to him heaven opens, and his rags are changed for robes — a crown is put upon his head — God receives him as his own child, and Dives is driven away to his own place ! Justice now grows 102 BEYOND THE GRAVE. bright again, and the universe rejoices in its right- eous Ruler! 5. The fifth proof we name is the universal belief of immortality. The joint causes already named, together with, perhaps, a tradition descend- ing from the beginning, and possibly an inward illumination common to all minds, have produced a universal belief in immortality. It is not pre- tended that in all cases, or even in the majority, there have existed clearly defined views on the sub- ject; on the contrary, it is admitted that generally it has been obscurely conceived, and that even the most enlightened persons have found it wrapped in profound mystery. But despite the darkness that naturally encompasses it, and against the discour- aging facts which surround it, it has for some pre- vailing reason or reasons mastered the world-faith. Nowhere, amid whatever of debasement, mental or moral, has it been obliterated. The wisest and most stupid, the wickedest and most virtuous, of mankind have alike embraced it. It is one of the two or three majestic truths which has had inherent force enough to maintain its sway over all ages, and, though resisted and caviled at, has had power enough to subjugate all minds. For myself, I can find no other explanation of this than its truth, and some inherent power of the mind by which it is intuited. But if the fact of its universal accept- ance is to be accounted as evidence that it is true, MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. IO3 as it certainly is, the evidence is strengthened by the further fact, that it has the greatest power over the purest and best minds. If it is called in question, it is by the intellectually degraded and morally vile. As men become base its hold is weakened. Sin, interested to escape exposure, tries to believe in possible concealment in the darkness of annihilation, but even it cannot. In proportion as the powers become purified and ennobled by the practices of virtue, and in the measure in which they are aggrandized by study and high culture, and as they rise into the serene region of pure thought, and are delivered from the films and mists of mere prejudice and fancy, this truth acquires more complete dominion over them. When made perfect they dwell in the reposeful and beautiful serenity of unquestioning faith. While it is true that, in most cases, evidence is addressed to the understanding or reason, it is certain that the mind does, in some cases, apprehend truth without being able to assign to itself the manner. The way is di- rect and inexplicable. We are forced to believe, without being able to assign why. May it not be a kind of divine instinct? It is remarkable that in no case, in which faith thus arises, is it ever found to be in error. Conclusions from observation are often false ; experience may be misinterpreted ; but when the mental nature goes universally, without being at the pains to require a reason, to one and the same 104 BEYOND THE GRAVE. conclusion, it is never convicted of error. Can if be supposed that these indisputable facts signify nothing? Is it a reasonable inference that this one instance is in violent disharmony with the common analogies of nature ? In this solitary case, do the hopes and fears and faiths of men indicate a fiction ? Is the Almighty, at this one point, in collision wit i himself? Is doubt reasonable, when it requires that we should go against the common and sponta- neous convictions, hopes, and fears of mankind, and when it indicts Jehovah himself with cruelty, in- justice, and a conspiracy to deceive his helpless children? Can a man stand alone against his race, and against the Almighty, and expect to make good his cause? The temerity of such a position is only surpassed by its transcendent folly. Jehovah has not perjured himself. The universal heart, in- stinct, and reason have not misjudged. Sin is not the champion of truth, nor virtue the herald of a lie. " There is not in the compass of nature a more lively emblem of the soul, imprisoned in this mortal body, than, homely as the comparison may appear, that of a bird in the egg. The little animal, though thus confined, is in the midst of the scenes of its future life. It is not distance which excludes it from the air, the light, and all the objects with which it will so soon be conversant. It is in the midst of them, though utterly shut out from them ; MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 105 and when the moment for bursting its inclosure comes, will be ushered into a new world, and trans- lated into scenes unknown before, not by any change of place, but by passing into another state of exist- ence. So it is with the soul. It is now, in a cer- tain sense, in eternity, and surrounded with eternal things. Even the body to which it is attached stands out, on the surface of this globe, in infinite space. Besides, the spiritual world envelopes it on every side ; it is encompassed with a cloud of wit- nesses ; innumerable spirits encamp about it ; and God is as intimately present to it, as to the highest angel that beholds his face in heaven. Neverthe- less, to realize to itself the nearness and presence of these eternal objects, at least to know them as it will know them hereafter, is a thing impossible. Why? Not because any tract of space is interposed between the soul and them, but because the spirit- ual principle, while united to flesh, is by the laws of that union so incarcerated in the body as to be denied all means of intercourse with those scenes which lie around its prison walls. The hand of death alone can unbar the door, and let the spirit out into the free air and open day-light of eternity. There is one important particular more in which this analogy holds. Unless the embryo is vivi- fied while in the egg, it can receive no vitalizing principle after. If the shell is broken the young bird comes out dead. Thus it is also with the soul. 14 106 BEYOND THE GRAVE. Unless impregnated with spiritual life before it leaves the body, it will come forth still-born into eternity, and continue forever dead in trespasses and sins." While imprisoned in the shell the bird is uncon- sciously outgrowing its conditions. It is develop- ing an organism not adapted to its narrow walls. It is taking on powers which must erelong break through its limitations. What was useful to it in the first stages of its life will soon become destruc- tive. It must have enlargement. Who will say that this development, which makes it unsuited to its present condition, and which precisely fits it for a broader, deeper, and better life, is not prophetic of that life ; that these unfolded powers, which find no sphere in its present condition, do not point to the open air and wider theater to which the demol- ished shell releases it ? The germ contained more than the prison limits of a shell would permit to unfold. Is it not so with the soul? Are there not powers here which never find full play on the earth, and never can? Has there not already developed in your soul wants which time and sense cannot satisfy? Do you not, in the supremest moments, hear voices in your soul calling you up ? Are you not conscious of longings for something better than earth can give ? Has there not come to you the feeling of an undefinable attraction toward unseen realities? Do you not sometimes see the MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. \0J far-off signals waving you on ? Do you not feel a strange uneasiness often, and stirring within you, as if you would fly away to a beautiful realm somewhere, where life could take on nobler forms, and, we do not doubt, those you have loved dwell? I know you do. Are not these prophetic — the stirring of a life in the germ ? I must think they are. We have found, upon grounds of reason, that man is a dual being — a spirit, shrined in a body ; that in the complex, the spirit is pre-eminent — par excellence \ the man ; that the body is inferior and instrumental — a servant pro tempore ; that, while it is a needed and useful adjunct for a time, it is in its nature per- ishable — incapable of permanence ; that the spirit, though now to a large extent dependent on it, if not for existence, for certain modes of its activity, yet at some future time, and under changed condi- tions, may consciously exist and act without it ; that though at death the body perishes, there is no proof that the spirit suffers in its integrity or power ; that while neither sense, consciousness, nor reason, furnishes any satisfactory account of what becomes of the spirit at death, yet it does appear from many facts, that probably death is not its de- struction but only its introduction into another realm ; that existence, once bestowed, from all that we know, is indestructible ; that powers which have inherent, endless progressibility indicate that they 108 BEYOND THE GRAVE. are immortal ; that instinctive fears and hopes, fore- casting a future scene of retribution, are prophetic; that the universal, ineradicable belief of future ex- istence, is of the nature of proof in its favor ; that the nature of God, whether we regard his wisdom, his love, or his justice, demands a future life for man : — so much has, we think, been clearly estab- lished. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. IO9 LECTURE III. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. TV T OW, turning away from these dim lights of -*■ ^ natural reason — not unthankful for them — we come to the fuller light of revelation, to see what it will give us. What we claim for the argument thus far is, that it furnishes grounds for rational faith in the doctrine of a future life. We do not pretend that it goes further ; but, however it may fail of being perfectly satisfactory, it is the best that our unaided powers can do. We turn now to our sixth proof: the testimony of revelation. This proof differs from all the pre- ceding in that it is not an induction, but a testimony ; it is not the voice of imperfect human reason, say- ing, it may be true, or probably is true, that man survives death ; but it is the voice of God declaring, Man does live after death. The former was inca- pable of carrying us further than a probability, the latter lands us in certainty. The argument assumes that the Bible is God's testimony. If this postulate be not true, of course the argument fails. Assuming it to be true, the 1 10 BE YOND THE. GRA VE. argument further posits, by implication, the ade- quacy of the witness. This will not be called in question. If it is certain that we do not know, it is not less certain that the Infinite does know, the truth in the premises. His testimony is not an in- ference or hearsay, but a personal knowledge. One of the first facts of which we become con- scious when we place this new object-glass to our mental eye is, the sense of assurance which comes over us ; out from a region of uncertainty and be- wildering shadows we emerge into a serene and cloudless day; the specters of doubt flee away, and a sense of security and rest comes to us ; we are as men worn with fear and uncertainty who have re- ceived quieting tidings. Leaving the dim lights of the Academy for the Temple, going beyond the Philosophers to the Mas- ter, we at once exchange the surmises of the foot- stool for the assurances of the throne ; inferences and doubts make way for certainty. The prophets — the greater than the prophets — the Lord of truth himself speaks to us. The message is clear, distinct, unequivocal : " Life and immortality are brought to light." The Gospel is an oratorio of triumph over death from beginning to end. It rings with the orchestral burst of a celestial anthem. It is as if heaven were unveiled and its glories seen by mor- tals. Its invisible splendors become as real to us as the radiant orbs which deck its vault. Its spirit- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 1 hosts encircle us, and we feel the thrill of their presence. The story of eternal life is recited to us with such vividness that we take fire with its rapt- ures, and feel the rush and movement of its exulta- tion — the thrill of its life. The matchless Teacher himself dies before our eyes, and enters the grave, that, by rising again, he may demonstrate the truth of his teachings, and show to sense that death is a vanquished enemy. After appearing alive, he mounts the heavens in open day, in the presence of many witnesses, pro- claiming as his last gospel, that he will come again and receive them, and all who have the same pre- cious faith, into the same heaven to which he ascends. The revelation is finished. Henceforth doubt disap- pears, death loses its sting, and the grave becomes a dressing-room for immortality. It remains that we seek to discover what, if any, revelation is made as to the modes and conditions of that life. What is the nature of that state upon which man enters when he quits this ? What modi- fications, if any, does he undergo himself? What are the changed conditions under which he will ex- ist ? These are the supremely interesting questions which must now engage our attention. It is fit that the acknowledgment should be made, that after all the aid we shall get from revelation the subject now broached will be found still shrouded in deep obscurity. The great Teacher established 112 BEYOND THE GRAVE. the fact of the immortal life, but he has not cleared it of mystery. Many questions of intensest interest to the affections he has left unanswered. Indeed, the sum of what he has made known is, that to the holy dead there remains an inconceivably glorious immortal life, while, to the unholy, there will be an endless existence of shame and misery. No at- tempt is made to give exact information touching either class. It is certain, even, that most that is said is imagery. It is safe to presume that this state of facts has both perplexed the faith and saddened the affections of most devout believers. The sub- ject is by no means as plain as we would like to have it. In fact, we want to know, or, at least, we want to be able to know, all about it. That ob- scure realm is the present home of those we love most and best, and it is to be our own eternal home ■ — so we are assured ; it is not surprising, therefore, that we are deeply interested in the minutest de- tails of its appearance, of the structure of its society, of its precise employments, and every thing else that the heart longs to know of its loved. But we are constrained to record that on all these points the information is the most general imaginable. I have searched the sayings of the Master himself, word by word, with the assiduity of unappeasable desire: and that I might have the advantage of the research of others who have pursued the study with the same insatiable hunger, I have read widely in MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 3 human books, but nothing that I have been able to find lifts the mystery. " It doth not yet appear what we shall be." As yet, " we know in part." There must be some good reasons why so much obscurity remains around a point which it was one of the chief objects of revelation to set before us, and knowledge respecting which is so supremely important. We would not be left to strain our fac- ulties so ineffectually if it were not, either that in the nature of the case it must needs be there should be obscurity, or, that it is best for purposes of dis- cipline that it should be so. Perhaps in both parts of this statement there is a clew. It is in the order of God that we should begin our existence on earth under the laws and limitations of sensation. One of these laws and limitations is, that in order for us clearly to conceive beings and objective things ex- ternal to self, they must be such as to be perceived by sense. It matters nothing how real they are, or how clear the proof of their existence, in the absence of this help we can have no distinct idea of them. This is a well-known law. To illustrate : the sense of sight is the organ through which the concept or knowledge of colors is given. If the sense is want- ing, as in the case of persons born blind, the idea can never be communicated. Words may serve to show that there is such a thing as color, that it is wrought into forms of most ravishing beauty, that everything which the blind touches exhibits it, but he is doomed 15 114 BEYOND THE GRAVE. to be forever destitute of the idea. He has no fac- ulty that will reach it. To enable him to compass it, we do not know that even God is able, without creating the missing sense or its equivalent. The same is true of any other sense. The deaf man can never have the concept of sound, though every pos- sible form and sign and expression be spread before him, and though he be placed amid the crash of ten thousand thunders, and though he feel the jar and vibrations of surrounding elements. He knows nothing by which it can be illustrated. Now it is a fact that, for the present, God has given us no sense by which to perceive the spirit world. Designing us, during the present stage of existence, to have to do with physical realities chiefly, he has not supplied us with an outfit of faculty to bring us into the sensible fellowship of spiritual realities. He tells us of them, and gives us to understand that we are ultimately to become acquainted with them, and, indeed, that we are now preparing for their society ; but more than this he has made it impossible for us to know. As the blind man stands in the midst of beauty without perceiving it — as undiscerning as if it were not, even when it surrounds and touches him on every side ; and as the deaf man stands dumb and insensible as a stone in the very focus of the storm of ravishing sounds, incapable of knowing the strains which thrill others, so, for aught we know, the tran- scendent glories of the spiritual universe insphere MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 5 us, and we know them not. The thinness of a film separates us from them, but the isolation is com- plete. Could some faculty which lies dormant now, and the enveloping film of which the skillful surgery of death may couch, be called into exercise at this moment, the grand procession of " thrones and do- minions and principalities and powers " might pass before our astonished and enraptured gaze. Possi- bly the magnificent spectacle clothes and interpen- etrates all grosser things, but for the present they are not for us. We walk along the rims of the ineffable glory. Some day a wand more deft than Ithuriel's spear will touch us, and the material universe will blaze with a spiritual splendor which will hide its grossness from our view, " and we shall see as we are seen, and know as we are known." For the present we must be content with an imperfect im- agination, which vainly seeks to put clear meaning in words which represent realites unknown. The chick in the shell lies cramped by a very thin and almost transparent film from its heaven, but knows it not ; so also do we. If it were as perfectly practicable and easy to bring spiritual realities within the range of our cognition, as it is to set physical realities before us, it is prob- ably not best that it should be done. It is tne or- der of God that this life should be a schooling for the life to come, a pupilage in rudiments. It is con- ceivable that further disclosures of the immortal Il6 BEYOND THE GRAVE. state would interfere with the purposes of this. If the unseen glories were revealed to us in all their measure, exclusion from them might be more than we could bear. If our weakness could endure the effulgence, it would be unequal to the privation. We should waste our years in pining. Grief would neutralize all useful activity. To go on patiently toiling, and contentedly suffering, in the round of useful but wearisome industry, after undue hardship and trials and bereavements which break the heart, crushes us even now ; what would it be if added to it was the sense of exile, which a more vivid view of heaven would inevitably beget ? Home-sickness would triumph over every other feeling. It was love that veiled the glory, disclosing just enough to awak- en hope, and restraining the excess that would have engendered discontent and despair. The revelation is sufficient for faith in that, and not enough to cre- ate disrelish and disgust of this. The obscurity is tonicful to patience and trust, so that we can both quietly endure and rejoicingly wait. At the right time the veil will be lifted, and the full tide of life will be let in upon us. There is, possibly, another reason, it maybe more nearly the real one than either of those mentioned ; or, what is more probable, one with them : in our sinful state, crippled as we are in our moral sensi- bilities, some of the noblest elements of the immor- tal life would have no attractions for us, and might MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 7 even excite our repugnance. Thus, while we should be unduly affected by some aspects, we should be either insensible to others or repelled by them. We need not only the faculty to discern them, but the development to appreciate them. The heaven that would entrance some souls to such a degree as to disqualify them for present duties, would awaken neither admiration nor aspirations in others. How wisely the heavenly Father has devised, in giving assurances to all, that the recompense he has pro- vided will surpass all dreams of the imagination, all ideals of hope? He permits us to draw our own Elysium, only conditioning us, that it shall be pure and holy, the assemblage of regenerate souls, and then gives us the assurance that it shall so transcend all our ideas that our surprise will be ecstatic. " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." " For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." As we advance in preparation, we shall come into states of mind and affection that will make the realities infinitely attractive, and to the utmost harmonious with our noblest tastes and desires. Does the witness give any information on the following points ? Are all immortal ? Is conscious- ness uninterrupted ? Do all go to the same place 1 1 8 BE YOND THE GRA VE. and condition? Does the body show in the im- mortal life ? What kind of employment do they have in the immortal life? Do we recognize each other in the immortal life ? These points exhaust the subject. We will take them up in their order. i. Arc all immortal ? There is not perfect agree- ment on this point as to the testimony. Most critics and believers think the testimony is explicit in the affirmative. Some dissent, and insist that only the good are immortal. The dissent unques- tionably originates in the affections. If the wicked are immortal, the teaching seems to be, that their immortality will be one of bitterness and sorrow. The idea is one at which our nature shudders — the nature of all men, good and bad. Any method of criticism that would eliminate this doctrine from the Scriptures would be welcome to all men. It is the great horror that hovers over this matchless volume. The very suggestion that only the good, to whom existence is blessing, live hereafter, while the evil, to whom life would be a curse, are permitted to perish as blasted seeds, has power in it. Whatever our doubt, it has an ally in our sympathies. It is so much less terrible than our fears, that it falls upon the shivering spirit like a psalm. Our affections are won before the argument begins. If Universalism, the doctrine of the final and endless holiness and happiness of all men, which, governed by mere instinct, we would wish might be MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 9 true, must nevertheless be rejected for want of sup- port, the doctrine that at least the wicked will live no more forever, and so the fountain of the world's woe will be dried up, comes to us as a prophecy of sweet things, a shelter from an impending storm. The affections being won, the intellect is next as- sailed. Here the difficulty is much greater, but the argument has a friend at court. Nor is the doc- trine without great plausibility to the natural mind. But to support it, the advocate is required to per- form a matchless feat, to show that revelation teaches a doctrine in direct contradiction of that which it does teach, which is, in fact, its warp and woof; but, Herculean as the task is, the affections prompt the effort; Much learning in philosophy and certain texts of Scripture are deftly wrought into its tissues and made to serve its ends. A primary necessity to its success is, that it should do away with the idea that the soul is an entity distinct from the body — the idea that man is a dual being. If it can succeed here it will have done two things : it will have dis- enchanted us of the idea that we are spirits, it will have prepared the way to show that death is utter destruction. But we have already shown that the argument is against this view. That the case may be fairly treated, we call still further attention to the subject from the stand-point of revelation. A numerous class of Scripture texts is found to 120 BEYOND THE GRAVE. serve this purpose — all such as show that the word rendered soul is often used to describe the natural life of animals as well as men, and that, in fact, the term only means wind or breath, and not a spiritual exist- ence at all : that, therefore, when the soul of man is spoken of, the word only means his breath cf life. It is marvelous how effective this sophistry becomes. A long string of cases is given in which the word is employed in the lower sense, and then it is adroitly assumed that it is never used in any other sense, and the unsophisticated reader is overwhelmed with the discovery that all his life long he has been labor- ing under the delusion that he had, or was, a soul, when, in fact, all there was of it was, he was an ani- mal that breathed ! Of course, when it is found that the soul is only the wind which is inhaled and ex- haled by the lungs, its dignity is lost, and the view of its immortality is reduced to a joke. It is hard to suppose that all those who employ this argument are uncandid, but it is certain that, whether they in- tend it or not, it is grossly misleading, and utterly sophistical. Such was the poverty of language among the He- brews, and, indeed, among all nations anciently, and such is its poverty yet, even among the most learned and highly cultivated peoples of the globe, that in most important matters words have to be carried over into figurative and symbolical uses. No lan- guage is yet rich enough to have an exact scientific MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 121 word for each object or mode in the whole circle of being. Most important words even yet do double service, and are used as names of things totally dis- tinct but resembling, or supposed to resemble, in some particular. In our own language, for instance, the word employed about this same subject, spirit, is from spiro, to breathe ; and sometimes is used to represent temper, excitement, even that which pro- duces excitement, but no one doubts that it has the deeper meaning. Again, the word inspiration radi- cally means to inhale air, yet nobody imagines that therefore this is its only or most important mean- ing. So, too, the word heart physiologically means an important organ of the body ; but no one imag- ines that it has not another and more important meaning in our language. It is obvious that in cases of this kind it is not just to seize upon one meaning, and probably the least important, simply because it is primary, and force it wherever the word is found. The sense in which it is employed must be determined by the connection. There can be no safe interpreta- tion without observing this rule. Read the text with the literal sense of the word, and it will fre- quently make nonsense, and contrariwise. That must be supposed to be the meaning of the author which makes the best sense. The Hebrews had two words in most common use, which are translated " soul " and " spirit : " 16 122 BEYOND THE GRAVE. ncpJicsJi, the equivalent of psucJie in the Greek, and of "soul" or "life" in our vernacular; and rualiJi, the equivalent of pncuma in the Greek, and of " spirit" in our vernacular. Besides these they hs.d several other words, of less frequent and less tech- nical use, as ncslidmdJi, in the Greek pnod, rendered "breath" and " spirit ; " also leb, in the Greek kar- dia, in our language " heart." For a most learned and exhaustive criticism of all these forms I refer you to Dr. George Bush's work on the soul. The result of his research is, that the word ncphcsh, or psuche, rendered " soul," radically signifies to breathe, to respire, and is so used in the Hebrew Scriptures. Seven times they are translated "living creatures," or the equivalents of that : eighty times translated "life" and its equivalents in the Old Testa- ment, and in the New psuche is twenty-three times translated in the same way. forty-four times these terms denote the bodily appetites and passions : one hundred and three times they are used in the sense of rational soul, mind, and emotion or affec- tions — properly the human soul : fifty-six times they are employed in the sense of the human person : seventy-six times they are used for one's self, or his essential intellectual and moral nature : eighteen times they are applied to God : and fourteen times to a dead body, or persons after death. To appre- ciate the learning in this collation one must procure and examine the work. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 23 Riiahh, pneuma in the Greek, in our tongue "spir- it," he finds used twenty-three times in the sense of breath: thirty-nine times in the sense of wind: fif- teen times in the sense of animal life and its equiv- alents : ninety-five times in the sense of spirit or mind, seat of thought, feeling, will, passions, and af- fections: thirty-two times of God as a spirit: twenty- three times in the sense of a spirit agent, whether good or bad angel, demon, or man. Neshdmdh, pnoe, "breath," " spirit:" twenty-three times in the sense of breath : three times mind, in- telligent principle. Leb, kardia, "heart :" seventeen times as an organ of the body: twenty-five times mind, understand- ing — faculty of thinking : thirty-six times as the seat of sensation, emotion, love, joy, etc. The result of the entire showing is, that while the words rendered soul and spirit are also employed in other senses as descriptive of life and of living beings in common, they are used four hundred and sixty-three times as predicates of God and of the intellectual and affectional part of man — and, as we shall now proceed to show, a great many times specif- ically to distinguish between the spiritual and phys- ical nature of man, in every one of which cases it would make nonsense if they were translated breath or mind. Take, for example, the following: — " The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, 124 BEYOND THE GRAVE. and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him." Zech. xii. I. That a distinction between the body and spirit is drawn here is obvious, and no one can fail to per- ceive that the spirit is regarded as a being shrined in the body. The passage is precisely analogous to the account of man's creation as given by Moses : — " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul." Gen. ii, 7. Here the shrine is first created out of the earth, and afterward the spirit is inbreathed. Take the following as another instance of the kind : — " And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation ?" Num. xvi, 22. In this verse God is worshiped as the God of the spirits of all flesh, marking the distinction between spirit and flesh, and so in the following passages : — " Behold, he put no trust in his servants ; and his angels he charged with folly : how much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?" Job iv, 18, 19. " I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell ; God knoweth : such MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 25 a one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell ; God knoweth : how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." 2 Cor. xii, 2-4. " Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Eccles. xii, 7. " Now the Egyptians are men, and not God ; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall fail together." Isa. xxxi, 3. " For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." 1 Cor. ii, 11. " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spir- it, that we are the children of God." Romans viii, 16. " For which cause we faint not ; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." 2 Cor. iv, 16. " For ye are bought with a price : therefore glori- fy God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." 1 Cor. vi, 20. " But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn." Job xiv, 22. 126 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 11 But there is a spirit in man : and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Job xxxii, 8. Now, this list might be greatly extended, but it is not important that it should be. No one can read these passages without perceiving that there is a fixed and radical distinction between the soul and body, and also that the spirit or soul is a real being, and the real personal substance of man — the man himself. This is the pervading doctrine of revela tion ; and to eliminate it from the Bible would be to take out the very soul of the volume, and leave it a husk of unmeaning words. The second class of passages made to do service in this argument is all such as represent death as a catastrophe, or final end of man ; such as " Man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up ; so man lieth down, and riseth not : till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." Job xiv, 10-12. 11 The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Psa. cxv, 17. " For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope : for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die : but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward ; for the memory of them is forgot- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 27 ten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished ; neither have they any more a portion forever in any thing that is done under the sun." Eccles. ix, 4-6. " I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing befalleth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they have all one breath ; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast : for all is vanity. All go unto one place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." Eccles. iii, 18-20. " Behold, for peace I had great bitterness ; but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption : for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee : they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth." Isa. xxxviii, 17, 18. " For evil doers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be : yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." Psa. xxxvii, 9, 10. " Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: O save me for thy mercies' sake ! For in death there is no re- membrance of thee : in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" Psa. vi, 4, 5. 128 BEYOND THE GRAVE. These passages seem to teach that death is ex- tinction. If they stood alone as exponents of the divine doctrine, or even if they were not explained by their own surroundings, the inference would be inevitable. When they are placed before the mind as bearing against an unwelcome doctrine, or in support of a position which we desire may be true, they are convincing. But no sooner do we place ourselves in right relations to them than we find that they were not designed to teach the doctrine that is inferred from them. Read these passages in their connections, and they will be found to be either lamentations over the brev- ity and emptiness of human life on the earth, or the hopelessness and confusion to which evil doers will ultimately come, and are not designed at all to teach that death is the utter end of man. They breathe the despair of man in view of his removal from this world as a returnless separation. That death is not destructive, on the other hand, is the general teaching of the entire volume of revelation, and the explicit declaration of specific passages. The third class of texts made to do service in this argument is such passages as represent the wicked as utterly destroyed. These passages are cited to prove that the penalty of unrepented sin is the extermination or annihilation of the offender ; that, therefore, a class of men is not immortal. It must be admitted that the words em- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. I2£ ployed do in themselves seem to teach that idea ; " destroyed root and branch," " consumed," " per- ish," " driven away," " eternal death," " burned up," " cut off," " doomed," are wonderfully suggestive of utter overthrow, with greatest violence — an eradica- tion by wrathful retributive power. If it were in- tended to inculcate that idea, it would be difficult to find more expressive symbols, and if there were no other words and passages, and nothing in the con- nection of the passages themselves to interpret them, it would be impossible to escape the inference. But such is not the case. The fourth class is such as represent that eternal life is the result of, and dependent on, faith, so that where faith does not exist the person perishes at death — lives no more. The following are stock pas- sages : " And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." " In him was life ; and the life was the light of men." "God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." 11 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true ; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." " The wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." From these and like Scriptures it is inferred, 17 I30 BEYOND THE GRAVE. that man as a whole body and spirit is naturally mortal, and that he only becomes immortal by spe- cial grace through Christ ; that, therefore, all who do not attain this special grace do finally and utter- ly perish, being left under the dominion of death. The language is capable of such a construction. It is not surprising that, in view of the relief furnished the affections, it should at once and eagerly be ac- cepted by many, without further inquiry. The great Christian doctrine that sin is punishable with death, and that salvation is by faith, is, with a little ingenu- ity, made to do service to this construction. It only needs to make the term death the equivalent of ex- tinction, and the term salvation the equivalent of restoration to life, and the argument is complete. It does not require much skill to do that. Conjointly the arguments have the appearance of great strength. They have impressed the popular and critical theological thinking of the times. Many intelligent and devout people, and teachcrc not a few, are half persuaded ; and many more would be glad to be persuaded ; but, after all, the case is so intrinsically weak that its success, with every wish on its side, is slow, and finally impossible. For my- self, I am free to say, were it possible I should be a convert. The idea of the endless conscious suffering of the wicked is the most unwelcome thought ever suggested to my mind. My whole soul revolts against it. There is no sacrifice I would not willingly make MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. I3I to get rid of it. It is the horror of all horrors. Such is the attitude of my mind to the question. But against my wish, and all the feelings of my soul, I am constrained to believe that God sees it differ- ently, and with infinitely greater capacity to know what is best and proper, and with infinitely greater love and tenderness than any of his holiest children can claim, has incorporated the dreadful fact of per- manent conscious suffering as a possibility in his plan. For some cause, too deep for my compre- hension, he will allow souls to live forever that will not be happy, and to whom existence will be per- petual "shame and everlasting contempt." I do not now see either the wisdom or goodness of the plan, and possibly never may; I even doubt if I ever shall; but my faith and confidence are not measured by my power of comprehension. My belief grows out of the revelation mainly, but not entirely. My confidence in the Author is too strong to be shaken by my ignorance of his reasons. That God is, I know. My intuitions and conscious- ness touch him. That he is infinitely holy, and just, and good, I cannot doubt. Though I cannot meas- ure his thought, and though when I find what it is, either by processes of reason or revelation, it does not always conform to my own idea — in fact is often in conflict with it — I am not disturbed. It is suffi- cient that it is his. I said that my belief in the dreadful doctrine of 132 BEYOND THE GRAVE. the immortality of the wicked grows mainly, but not entirely, out of the revelation. We have seen that there are reasons for the belief that man is a spirit aside from the Bible : reasons so cogent as to create faith in ages and places where th^ Bible was unknown ; reasons so cogent that were all faith in the Bible now destroyed, the thoughtful world would find it impossible to divest itself of the belief. That men will live forever is also a convic- tion which somehow masters the race. The same reasons convince us that there are no exceptions ; that if one soul is immortal so will all the rest be. Some are evil, and we think it would be a good plan to expunge them. We know that if they remain evil they ought to suffer, for we cannot doubt that sin deserves suffering. We don't like suffering. We wish the sin and the suffering might somehow be wound up ; but do not see that it will, and fear that it will not. The conviction of an eternal hell grows up alongside of the belief of an eternal heaven. We cannot get rid of it. Eternal evil is the fell shadow of eternal good. The gigantic gloom of the one runs pari passu with the glorious splendor of the other. We may cavil at it, but will not be able to change it. It is not agreeable to our wishes, but the Infi- nite does not regulate his plans to that end. Retri- bution is never pleasant to the culprit, and suffering is never agreeable as an object of contemplation to MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 33 the merciful ; but the Eternal, who is infinite love, turns aside no law of his because of the suffering it inflicts. The law is better than the avoidance of its penalties, either by reversing them or annihilating the miserable victim of them. Gravitation will not be suspended to save a city from the descending avalanche. Decaying substances will exhale nox- ious gases and poisonous malaria, though a nation should die. Earthquakes and destructive storms will keep their courses though a globe be riven and depopulated. Law is supreme. It is so in the moral no less than the natural realm. Sin and holi- ness will meet their merited recompense. He who made law for the sake of good will not suspend it in behalf of evil. He will neither lift its demands nor remit its penalties to make sin easy or safe. The sin is what he hates ; he will not give it franchise or immunity in his empire by suspending the law which condemns, or neutralizing the curse which follows it. If men will transgress, the everlasting law will go straight to its mark, as in every other case. The blow that lays the culprit low may seem hard and cruel, but it is more merciful than that the sinner be permitted to do his deadly work with impunity. Sin unrestrained is infinitely worse than the endless hell which puts it in limits. Annihilate the latter, and lawlessness makes the whole universe a worse hell than is the one proposed to be abolished. We have seen how each of these supports fail to 134 BEYOND THE GRAVE. establish the doctrine of the non-immortality of man as man : we now place against them the counter ar- gument. This comprises all those scriptures which represent man as amenable to a future judgment. These plainly teach that all men will, after death, have to render an account to God, which is impos- sible unless their existence is continued beyond death. They teach, especially, that the wicked will be judged, and will be adjudged to a punishment which shall be conscious and endless. This has been greatly questioned, but is certainly not disproved. Judged by the language employed, and not by sym- pathy, it never would have been called in question. If the object were to express it, no other language could be substituted. The protest is not one on the ground of meanings of terms, but wholly one of the affections. It is resisted because the idea is not agreeable. Agreeableness is neither a test of truth nor a criterion of meanings. If what is disagreeable were, therefore, false, it might be ground for reject- ing a document when it taught unpalatable truths, or for correcting the text ; but until that is shown the question of likes and dislikes can properly have no weight. If it could be shown that the doctrine is impossible on any grounds, it might destroy the authority of the Bible ; but could not alter the meaning of the text. The doctrine is clearly taught, and, whether rejected or accepted, cannot be meta- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 135 morphosed by adroit tampering with words. If it were doubtfully in the text, or if it were found only in an obscure part, or if it appeared rarely, however fully, I should be inclined to give it up, even though I. could not assign good reasons for doing it. I would venture to hope that it was a miscopying, or interpolation, or change of meaning of words, or something of the sort. But when I find it, as I think I do, omnipresent in the whole scheme from beginning to end of the holy volume — an underly- ing cardinal implication throughout, and expressly stated many times, I am compelled to give in my adhesion. The book masters me as an authority. I cannot reject it. I have no skill to torture any other meaning out of its language. I am forced to believe that it teaches explicitly and uniformly that the evil as well as the good are immortal, and that heaven and hell are the everlasting abodes of the saved or the lost. The eternal God, who is infinite in wisdom and goodness, has so ordained, or the Bible is singularly hard to understand. Do the spirits of men consciously exist in the interval between death and the resurrection ? This supposed interval is generally called, in theolog- ical language, the intermediate state. It embraces that indefinite period from the death of the first man, or, rather, from the first human death, until the end of the present order : a period that now extends over six thousand years, and which may I36 BEYOND THE GRAVE. extend, for aught we know, yet millions of years more. What is the state of man during that in- terval ? We must inevitably feel that the length of time included is an important matter to our affections. If it were certainly only a few thou- sand years, we might feel less solicitude about the answer than if it extends up into millions. There is no reason to doubt that it will be a long time. It has been a long time already since Abel laid his head upon the sod, and there is not much sign, we think, of the end. Probably we are only yet in the beginning. I know there have been fond ideas from the earliest Christian times that the end is at hand. It is safe to conclude that many weary generations will come and go before it reaches us. They are waiting for it. Is it a painful waiting? Will it seem long to them ? There are two or three views on this subject which seem to be more or less probable. First is the theory that the dead are unconscious until the great awakening : it is called the theory of the sleep of the soul. It is held in two forms : First, those who think the soul material hold that it is unconscious because disorganized, and will remain so until the reorganization in the resurrection ; the error of this theory has been already fully exposed, and needs not that it should be further noticed. The second form is, that the soul, though a spiritual being distinct from the organism, is so dependent MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 37 upon it for its activity, that when deprived of it, it must become inactive, and remain so until it is re- stored at the resurrection. This hypothesis is, on some grounds, much less objectionable than that of the materialist ; but we find it impossible to accept it for many reasons, some of which have been stated already. We feel a natural repugnance to it. The idea of unconsciousness for so vast a period has, to the imagination, almost the dreariness of annihila- tion. We invest it with a sense of loss that appalls us. All this is mere deception of the fancy. If the theory should prove true, it would not hurt us in the least, except the present pain it gives us. The unconscious sleeper would know nothing of it, and would awake in the resurrection morning as if he had slumbered but for one moment ; and the million years he had lost would be no diminution of a heritage which includes eternity in its wealth. It is not because it implies calamity that we reject it. That we know to be an hallucination ; and we are free to say that it would relieve some points of apparent difficulty if it could be admitted. There seems to be a want of fitness in the ad interim state in view of a judgment to follow. It is not without embarrassment that souls should be supposed to enter upon a state of award, whether of happiness or misery, and thousands of years subsequently be called to judgment. It is confusing to suppose souls existing for ages without bodies, and then return- 18 T33 BEYOND THE GRAVE, ing to organisms, as many seem to believe. All thoughtful and candid people do feel that the gen- eral doctrine with respect to the intermediate state is both obscure and indefinite. But the theory of the soul's sleep is unauthorized by reason, and is contradicted by revelation. The reasons for the first part of the statement have been given ; let us attend to the reasons for the sec- ond part. The Scriptures teach the doctrine that the dead are now conscious. This form of the proposi- tion presents the matter in question directly. It is the spirit of the whole volume. And we must not forget that this is much more conclusive than a few specified statements. Error seeks out accidental sentences, and hides itself in them, straining inter- pretation to conform to the alien and discordant idea. Truth is the pervading atmosphere of the entire deliverance. From Christ, on through all the ages, the Christian commonwealth has known no other doctrine. This is only of value as indicat- ing the obvious drift of the doctrine. That it has rightly caught and interpreted the mind of the Spirit appears from specific statements. We rest on the following passages. First, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We call it a parable because we do not doubt that it is such. Many most schol- arly students regard it as historical. Whichever view be taken, the teaching is precisely the same. It is unmistakably designed to reveal the doctrine of the MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 39 future world ; to show how condition there will be determined by character, and not by external ap- pearances or conditions here ; and, further, to show how memory and relations of the now will accom- pany us into that state : and it expressly teaches that those memories and consciousnesses will con- tinue without interruption. The whole scene is laid immediately after death, and while the brothers of the one party are yet living on the earth. If the story teaches any thing, it teaches permanent con- sciousness through and beyond death. It must be rejected as meaningless, as a mere fancy picture, without moral or doctrinal significance, if this view be rejected. Of like import is the following passage : " Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord : . . . we are confident, I say, and will- ing rather to be absent from the body, and to be pres- ent with the Lord." 2 Cor. v, 6. Let any one read the passage in its connections and he cannot fail to feel that it is explicit. The statement begins and pro- gresses with the precision of deliberate words : " For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven : if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being 140 BEYOND THE GRAVE. burdened : not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the self- same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always con- fident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord : for we walk by faith, not by sight: we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." 2 Cor. v, 1-8. Several important things are contained in this wonderful passage. It distinguishes most plainly between the personal self and its dwelling place : and between its present house and its future house ; designating the present as a tabernacle, indicative of its temporary charac- ter, and its future house as a building, the very term indicating permanence ; but, not content with this, it says expressly, it is eternal and in the heav- ens. He then professes his discontent with his temporary house, and his longing for his heavenly home, which he says is the ultimate purpose of God to bestow. Then follows the declaration of Paul's unwavering faith : " Therefore we are always confi- dent ;" it is his settled state of undoubting certainty, " knowing that whilst we are at home in the body," the earthly tabernacle, " we are absent from the Lord : for we walk by faith, not by sight : we are confident, I say, and [therefore] willing rather to be absent from the body, [the tabernacle in which MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 141 we groan,] and to be present with the Lord." A more beautiful statement of the doctrine of the spir- it's survivance of the body, and its advanced bliss and consciousness, could scarcely be put in language. The passage is conclusive of the apostle's faith. The same sentiment is expressed no less plainly in these words: u According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor : yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, hav- ing a desire to depart, and to be with Christ ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." Phil, i, 20-24. The same discrimination between the person and his body, and the assurance that the person may exist separate from the body, and be gainer by the removal, is set forth in the following statement : " For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a de- sire to depart, [to go forth from the body,] and to be with Christ ; which is far better." This ap- pears to have been the habitual state of the apos- tle's mind, as, indeed, it has been of all eminent saints, the feeling of confident faith that absence from the earthly life is entrance upon a more bliss- ful life, and therefore a desire, when it is the will of I4 2 BEYOND THE GRAVE. God, to depart. To depart : faith looks upon death not as destruction, but as a going away, as a going home. It is quitting toil and suffering, and leaving the tabernacle of clay in ruins, and going on to a more exalted form of life. The prayer of the dying thief and our Lord's re- sponse is conclusive : " Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." Luke xxiii, 42, 43. Did not Moses and Elias appear on the mount ? Did not " a fellow-servant, one of the prophets," appear to John on Patmos ? Did not the martyr Stephen see heaven open, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and did he not pray, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ? " Do not the circumstances prove that he desired and expected immediate reception by Christ himself? Is it not said, that when the dust returns to dust the spirit returns to God who gave it ? From the nature of the soul, the spirit of faith, and the specific teachings of revelation, we are constrained to believe that death here is birth into the spiritual world, with advanced conditions of being and intensified consciousness. Our convic- tion on this point finds support, not more in the common belief of its truth by Christians than in the almost universal experiences of saints in the article of death. The soul seems to acquire strange and marvelous strength about the time of its departure. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 143 As the spiritual world approaches the spiritual con- sciousness is singularly quickened. At the moment when, from physical weakness and prospect of quit- ting earth and familiar forms and loved friends, and of passing into unknown conditions, in every way filling the imagination with dread, we would expect doubt and dismay, the soul becomes suddenly filled with preternatural strength ; the life that has been all along clouded with fear and uncertainty culmi- nates in the very moment of its overthrow in tri- umphant assurance ; death, that was always dreaded, is hailed with shouts of welcome; the last moments are not unfrequently spent in exultant and raptur- ous statements of the revelation of hitherto unseen glories, and of the coming and presence, not unfre- quently, of well known and most beloved friends. To children, and saintly women and gifted sages, the vision of Stephen is repeated in wondrous variety and fullness. Even before they enter through the veil the life beyond envelopes them in its luster, and words of farewell are lost in speeches and looks addressed to the unseen (by us) multi- tudes who have come to welcome them home. Un- belief scouts such revelations. Let it. The belief of them is precious to the instincts and best reason and most lustrous faith of the purest and wisest spir- its that have ever graced, or do now grace, the earth. If, as appears from express revelation, and from reason as well, the doctrine is true that man is a 144 BEYOND THE GRAVE. spirit ; that there is a great spiritual universe ; that the good and holy are a divine brotherhood ; that flesh and blood are the walls of separation between this and that ; that death opens a door into its glory, and that the spiritual consciousness is quickened and heightened on its entrance ; and, in fact, that life is a journey to its felicities ; why not such experiences in the dying moment ? When the spirit reaches its goal, when it comes to the line where two worlds meet, when it is, in fact, almost through and over, why not wave farewells and greetings to those on this and that side as it passes the river? Personally, I have seen too much to doubt. I no more dare disbelieve than I can question my own present con- sciousness. Is it probable that the spirits of men are wholly nude of organism during their existence in the in- termediate state? There is not a word of informa- tion on that subject. There are no sufficient facts known to be the basis of a rational conjecture, un- less the disclosures just referred to as made to dying saints might furnish some ground. The suggestion that the animal soul, as a kind of shroud, a tertiam quid — neither spirit nor matter, or a superlative composite of matter — survives the body as an or- ganism, may have something in it, but we cannot get beyond conjecture. The suggestion that angels themselves have organism of some ethereal kind is probably true. The suggestion that organism is MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 145 indispensable to the formation of society appears probable. The fact that Moses and Elias appeared in form intimates it may be a something. But the subject is too occult to be brought within the range of rational investigation. Any speculation that could be advanced, however it might interest us as possible, or even probable, could give us no com- fort of faith. It suffices that we are informed that the departed from this life do exist, that they are cognizant of each other, that they have blissful fellowship, that they have exalted consciousness. These things are revealed. If they need the adden- dum of some kind of organism in order to the fill- ing out of what is implied in such facts, they will have organisms. The point will be further consid- ered in connection with the resurrection of the dead. Where do the spirits dwell in the interval ? It is unknown. Whether their ad interim location, or their eternal dwelling-place, is about us, or in some remote region, we have no means of absolutely de- termining. Many imagine that the case is plainly set forth in revelation. We are quite sure they are mistaken. It seems from many particular passages, and from the general drift of revelation — the only source of light — that spirits, on quitting the body, do not en- ter at once upon their ultimate mode of existence, or final destiny. Confining our attention to such as are saved, it does not appear that they enter at 19 14^ BEYOND THE GRAVE. once upon the full inheritance of glory. Far on, after the judgment, at the end of the world, there seems to be an advance of some kind. Many fan- ciful notions have been entertained, but nothing is clear in the sacred oracles on the point beyond the fact that the saved at death enter a realm of happi- ness, which is a prelude to a higher state of bliss, still held in reserve. 1 Pet. i, 5. The stages of human existence seem to me to assume the form of a series of evolutions, from in- ferior to increasingly glorious conditions, in a beau- tiful order. It is initiated in the darkness of the womb. Here its life is undeveloped and uncon- scious, but it is a useful period of growth and prep- aration. It fits for the on-coming period of con- scious and responsible action. The second stage is that of existence in the body, as an independent personality. It is a period of growing and devel- oping intellectual life and of moral conflict, during which character is set and partly formed. This gives to the present life its real significance. The lower nature, the body, is during this period a needful appendage to the unfolding both of the mental and moral being. The conditions of this state, in every particular, seem to advance the being until the state itself becomes unadapted to him, and it becomes necessary that he should be delivered from it. Death opens the door of release — is birth. He enters upon a third state, greatly in advance of MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 47 this. Perhaps the transition is not less than the translation from the womb to the life we live in the open world — the life of commingled trial and joy, which makes up our consciousness from the cradle to the grave. In the change we lose our earthly bodies, and all conditions of the life we lived in them, which we have outgrown, the ends of which have been served. We are born into new condi- tions, with a psychical body of some kind, which as imperceptibly develops while we live as the body of the child unconsciously grew in the womb. In the new state we live and grow in power and character ; have an abode suited to our changed condition; and have opened to us employments suitable to advance and perfect us in noble manhood. I do not know where it is, or what its conditions. It is called Paradise. Its duration may be very long and very glorious. Then comes another, and the final evolution or birth, into the full glories of the heavenly world ; into an organism generically and lineally connected with the one initiated in the womb, worn through- out the earthly life, and eliminated by death. Per- haps the intermediate stage is as much needed to prepare us for that as this is to prepare us for it. I am persuaded that my thought is in line with the truth ; but it is poor and powerless. The heights are too difficult for it. When death opens the first portal, and I have passed on through a million years J 4 8 BEYOND THE GRAVE. of rapturous happiness, and the second portal opens, I shall know more, and my thought will not halt and creep as it does now. The Jewish doctrine of a third heaven — a region beyond the stars — and the fact that terms are em- ployed representing that Christ came down from heaven, and ascended up into heaven, and the state- ment of Paul to the effect that he was caught up into heaven, and all that kind of Scripture, teach nothing as to the location of our future heaven. They must relate rather to degrees and kinds of ex- istence than geographical position. The terms, up and down, relating to a globe whose surfaces are changing relations to space every moment, and whose surfaces point in different directions each change, are meaningless as terms of location. There is no up or down in such a case, for all points are up or down in succession. The magnificent conception of Mr. Dick, that the future abode of the saints is the grand center of the universe, attracts us. As wrought up by him, it seems plausible, but it is simply a beautiful imagination. The equally grand conception of Mr. Faber, that heaven comprises the whole universe, the stars being but the resplendent mansions in the heavenly Father's house, is even more impressive. Perhaps, when let out of the body, we shall find the whole temple of being blazing with spiritual splendors. The opening of spiritual senses may disclose the wonder of celestial MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 49 thrones and dominions rising amid and upon all concrete forms. But any concept we may form can only be an imagination. There are no facts from which to deduce valid conclusions. This only is made known by the Faithful Witness : it is a vast and glorious realm somewhere in the empire of Jehovah, which, in our ongoing, we shall reach. Death will put us in connection with it. When the doors of our earthly prison are battered down we shall find celestial highways open and guides waiting. Every death-bed is a station on the thoroughfare, and when the death knell sounds, a chariot will be at^ the door. How do the departed employ themselves during the interval, and the eternity as well ? No person on earth knows, or will ever be able to find out. As well ask a babe in the womb what they do in the world at whose door-way it waits. It could give, probably, not quite so intelligent an answer, but the cases would not materially differ. Some things we may rest assured of, their life and activities will be such as to harmonize with the attributes and wants of such beings as they are — such as will con- duce to their highest development and noblest en- joyment. So much the general information fur- nished by revelation and analogy warrants ; more is matter of mere conjecture. As knowledge and love are the end of all spiritual faculties, and as all activ- ities are in their interests, and as their increase and I50 BEYOND THE GRAVE. efflux are the substance of all happiness, it is certain that eternity will furnish them the theater, and con- stitute the sphere, of their endless growth. How they will be conducted along the lines of their re- searches, and what will be the peculiar expression of their love, or on what principle their varied pur- suits and employments will be determined at par- ticular times, has not been communicated, and, we may venture the surmise, will never be found out until we graduate to the celestial state. I have some favorite conjectures, in which I find great sat- isfaction, which, if I did not know they are mere dreams, I would like to state. They could be of no benefit, and, therefore, I withhold them. It is a point on which every man may have his own psalm, with one condition, that he does not seek to impose it on others, and that it be in harmony with a holy and happy heaven. The third point, Do we possess bodies in the im- mortal life, and if so, what kind of bodies? This is a question about which a vast obscurity gathers, and yet which many seem to imagine is set forth with unusual fullness and plainness in the holy rev- elation. The intimation even of possible difference of view or dissent is accounted heresy. There is unbecoming impatience and even intolerance of dis- cussion. Nothing could be more unwise or more unfortunate for the interests of truth. The case is one beset with manifold difficulty, and, as much as MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 5 l any within the range of Christian thought, requires calm and unprejudiced inquiry. It is neither profit- able nor Christian to refuse candid discussion. Nothing is more certain than that Jesus taught, as one of his cardinal truths, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Disbelief of that truth is as indisputable heresy as disbelief in the divine mis- sion of Jesus. " I believe in the resurrection of the dead," has been the language of faith in all the Christian ages, and must continue to be so in all the ages to come, while Jesus remains master in his Church. But that wherein the resurrection of the dead consists has never been formulated by any authority on earth, and perhaps never will be, and is not of the substance of faith. It is among the questions about which good men may disagree. Some will attain to more, some will hold less, intel- ligent views. Some will be enslaved by the letter of a text, other some will be more anxious to grasp the spirit of the revelation. Some will believe with- out considering difficulties of reason, others will in- quire into reconciling methods of interpretation. Let no one assume authority over others. Before we proceed to state and examine theories of the resurrection, it may be wise to correct some misleading preconceptions. Chief among these is the groundless imagination that man was designed to be immortal as he is ; that but for sin he would have remained forever in the body with which he 152 BEYOND THE GRAVE. was at first invested — a deathless earthly man. It is easy to see how this imagination would become misleading in any attempt to conceive or formulate the doctrine of the resurrection. The natural re- sult would be, to suppose that it simply restores the body destroyed, or one substantially like it. If the imagination be false, it should be dispelled before a theory is formulated. That it is false in every particular we think there can be no reason- able doubt. It may possibly be true, that natural death to man is somehow the result of sin. But if true, it is certainly an exceptional case. Death to all other creatures was undoubtedly a provision in the original constitution of things — is natural. This is so important a principle that it may be proper to dignify it with more than a simple statement. We can here only refer to the sources of proof: these are, First, The geological fact, that death reigned from the dawn of life, ages before the possibility of sin existed. Second, The physiological law, that the living tissue is incessantly lapsing into death by the processes of life. Third, The physiological fact, that some orders of life subsist on the destruction of other orders of life ; and that they were original- ly designed for that, the proof of which is found in their organization. Fourth, The law of fecundation, which would render it impossible that life should be permanent, as the world and the whole universe MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 153 would, in a short period, become overstocked. We append, elsewhere, a remarkable illustration of this latter law. Death, then, among earthly races, is natural — cor- porate in the original plan of creation. We do not assert that this is true of man ; but we do assert this, that he was not originally intended to remain in a body like that given him in creation. It was a temporary arrangement in any event. Had he not sinned, and so become subject to death, he would, nevertheless, in some method, have been delivered from his earthly body. Then we are not to reason from this earthly body to the resurrection body. If, under the original plan, he would in time have put on a new body, unlike the present in its wants, and uses, and substances, so, we may infer, will it be in the resurrection. It may be important that the subject of identity should be elucidated. Strictly speaking, when we predicate identity of a substance of any kind, we mean that the particles or particle of its constitu- ents have not changed ; they are still numerically and specifically what they were before. Resem- blance, however exact, is not identity. When we predicate identity of an organism, we mean that the organism has not changed its base, or been re- placed by another of like kind, however closely re- sembling. 20 154 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. Identity cannot be predicated of the human body, as to its substance, any two moments of time. There are no two moments, perhaps, in the closest succes- sion, in which it does not either gain or lose some minute particles; and, however small, the identity of aggregate or corporeity is in that degree affected. This state of permanent flux is so devastating, that in a short time the body has lost every particle of its former self, and is another body, as really as if it belonged to another man or any other animal. Of this there can be no doubt. As to the material particles, it has no identity for more than a moment, no prolonged unity; but it is a constantly vanish- ing quantity. What, then, constitutes the identity of the man, that self which is permanent? We an- swer, that which is man. Here we have a substance no particle of which ever retires to make way for another. The presence of this, who is a spirit in a body, is permanent, and when we predicate identity of the form, we do not say that it is the same at all, but we mean that it is the form of a person who is permanent. We care nothing about whether it has gained or lost fifty of its one hundred and fifty pounds in a year or a month ; or whether it has re tired one set of particles and taken on an entirely new set. It is not of these that we are predicating, but of a person who owns them, and who, conscious- ly or unconsciously, knows of their coming or going while he remains. The thing we mean is, that it is all MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 5 5 the time the body of which he is the life ; whether it is composed of these or those atoms : the sum of which is, that the constituents of a human body are no part of the identity of a man ; it matters nothing when they happen to be connected with him. He is no more of a man when he has, and no less a man when he has them not. If a miracle could be wrought, which no doubt it could, by which two men would entirely exchange bodies, as to their substance, in one minute, it would not at all affect their personal identity, as it does not when the process of change extends over seven years. It is sometimes stated, that since man is in a body, the body is a part of the man-essence. This we constantly disallow. It is an accident or appendage of his existence, and should never be construed as any part of his essen- tial personality. Luke ix, 25, " lose himself," is rendered properly his soul or spirit. Another thing it may be important to note is, the supposable uses of bodies in the next life. I pre- sume no one imagines that physical labor of any kind will be carried on in the next life, such as agri- culture, mechanic arts, planting, and building. If not, then those arrangements of the body which are designed to serve such purposes will be useless, and will scarcely find place in the resurrection body — bones, ligaments, and muscle will disappear. It is not supposable that wastes of the immortal body will need to be repaired by food ; then a stomach 156 BEYOND THE GRAVE. will be useless, and all the viscera connected there- with : the circulation of blood is an arrangement for rebuilding, by carrying the material that is to be assimilated to its place in the organism ; but as this function will have no more place, this also may be supposed to be eliminated : and as the heart serves chiefly as a force-pump to keep up the circulation, and the lungs as an instrument for purification of the blood, we may expect these also to be dismissed. I know of no ends to be served in the immortal life by any of these organic arrangements, designed to subserve industries, alimentation, or procreation, matters which pertain to the earthly state exclusive- ly : and all analogies warrant the idea of their dis- continuance from the organism. Those only may be supposed of use which serve sensation, and, in some way, minister directly to the spiritual nature as means of growth, and of spiritual communion ; and these only may be supposed to be carried up in the spiritual body; and these, not as they are, but with infinite improvement. There is nothing in the divine teaching contrary to this view ; and much by fair inference in its support. There is abundant reason to suppose, that while all these grosser functions will cease, a new order of ends will arise, such as freedom of the universe, ability to travel with great velocity among remote worlds, to live in perpetual activity without rest or sleep, freedom from accidents or injury from the MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. l$7 destructive forces of outer elements, and matters of this kind. It must be obvious that all this implies a marvelous change in the structure and tissues of the organism. No one can rightly study the problem of the res- urrection life, and that wherein the resurrection con- sists, without having these considerations in view. If it were resurrection to a state similar to this — a mere return to the old conditions, except that sin and death, and evils connected therewith, were left out, then resurrection would mean one thing : if, on the contrary, it is resurrection to life under en- tirely different conditions — emergence into totally dissimilar kinds of good, wants, activities, then res- urrection would, must, mean an entirely different thing. In the former case we should expect the restoration of the old body, or a better one essen- tially like it ; in the latter we should expect resur- rection to give us an essentially new outfit ; it might be the old manse made over, or one new from foun- dation to finial. In the former case the change might be great, but not radical as to the kind and mode of life ; in the latter the change would be rad- ical advancement to essentially new and higher con- ditions of existence. To our thinking the script- ural view is suggestive of the latter rather than the former. Once more. It is a question which has been mooted whether resurrection is predicated of the body or of 153 BEYOND THE GRAVE. the person. Ordinarily it is understood of the body, but it is a noticeable fact that the body is not once directly mentioned in the Scriptures as the subject : though there are passages which unmistakably point to the body ; as, "Who will change these vile bodies and fashion them like unto his glorious body." Can- dor requires that we should state this. In every case it is the resurrection of the dead — the person wJio is dead. Or, more properly still, the resurrection of the person who has passed out of a body of flesh and blood, and who is, therefore, separated from this life, and is hence said to be dead. This fact is made much of by the scholars of the New Church faith, and becomes a strong argument in their hands against the resurrection of the literal body of flesh and blood laid aside by death. Death is the withdrawment of the person from the body; the ruin or decomposi- tion which follows is a natural effect, as its preserva- tion was a natural effect of the inherence of the person. The resurrection is the standing again of the person in a body or after his severance from the gross body. The resurrection, therefore, is deliver- ance from the gross body, and resumption of life without it in the spiritual world. This view, we do not doubt, is in the main in the direction of truth, but neither can we doubt that it is imperfect, and, in some parts, false. A man's body, in the earthly state, is a gross organism of flesh and blood, arranged, in the inter- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 59 ests of the soul, into a deft sensorium ; arranged, in its own interest, as a machine for labor, with instru- ments for carrying on mechanic arts, husbandry, fine arts, and whatever is necessary to the physical well-being or to the gratification of the mental tastes and desires, and with apparatus for the reception, digestion, and assimilation of food, and the rejection and removal of unalimental substances ; and for the friendship and propagation of its kind. To these uses it is adapted, and for them exclusively made, so far as appears. Should these ends ever become ob- solete, its function would cease, and it might be re- moved without damage. In the course of an ordinary life-time this body is, in fact, as to its discrete particles, many times en- tirely removed, and its place supplied by another. It is probably safe to suppose that the several bodies which gradually but totally vanish particle by parti- cle, as we journey through the years, will have no connection with the life to come. No one, it is pre- sumed, imagines that they will be gathered. There is much suggestion in this. Of the particular body that happens to be tenanted at death, the general opinion is that it will be restored in the resurrection, in whole or in part, indeed, that its rebuilding is the resurrection which our Saviour teaches. Why these particular particles should be gathered, and the others not, is a question it might be difficult to answer. l6o BEYOND THE GRAVE. The grounds upon which this belief rests are chiefly these : — First. The term resurrection — standing again — it is insisted, signifies the standing again of the body. Second. The fact that Christ was raised in the ex- act body which was laid down. It is assumed that this is the pattern of our resurrection. Third. The passages which speak of the coming from the grave in the resurrection. Fourth. It is assumed that the body, having been companion of the spirit in its sins and obediences, must in justice share in the blessings or curse of the recompense. Finally. Some account is made of the kinship to the effect that it would be a disappointment to the spirit not to find its exact old partner, the sharer of its former joys and sorrows, in its triumphs. Some of these reasons are entitled to great weight. The last two are simply blind and irrational impulses, and utterly groundless and false. The body is in no sense the partaker of moral deserts, and can in no sense participate in the recompense. Neither sin nor virtue can be predicated of any affection or con- dition of matter. Reward or punishment is impossi- ble to matter. It is a vain imagination to suppose it capable of ethical quality or ethical treatment. The body may be an instrument of sin or of right- eousness, but in no sense a sharer. The sole and only agent is the spirit. The body no more enters MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. l6l into the merit or demerit, than the clothes or ma- terial implements employed. There is no more cer- tain truth than this. Ignorance and imagination invest the material organism with ethical qualities, but fact and reason teach us that it is only a definite quantity of oxygen and other gases, fashioned in a certain way. The affection the soul has for the body, and the consequent disappointment it would feel at having it displaced by another, is a fond imagination — delu- sion. Does it love the body in which it sickens and dies better than the one in which it was ruddy with youth ? Why, then, shall it feel more regret in giv- ing it up? There is no particle of it that it partic- ularly cares for. If it should lose atom by atom, as in fact it does daily, it would not go into mourning. Its mold in the grave will have no special charm for it. Let us cease to be the sport of dreams and slave of prejudices. The remaining three considerations cannot so easily be disposed of, and yet there will appear ob- vious reasons why they should be scrutinized, and interpreted with accommodation. Particularly as it is expressly said that " flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God," and as Paul, in his illustrative case in direct answer to the question, " How are the dead raised up ? and with what body do they come?" says explicitly, " Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die : 21 1 62 BEYOND THE GRAVE. and that which thou sowest, thou sozvest not that body that shall be, . . . but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, ... so also is the resurrec- tion of the dead." And again, of like import, " We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." These are sufficient to justify modesty and hesitation. Tl^e word resurrection is strained when it is in- sisted that it is equivalent to the statement, that the exact body is to be restored. It may even be doubted whether it is an assertion concerning any part of the body. Its utmost meaning is, that the man who is cut down by death shall live and flour- ish again — he shall not remain prostrate, but sTiall stand again ; death shall not be victor over him. The word need have no other meaning than this, unless it is forced by its connections. The second assumption, that the resurrection of Christ is the pattern of our resurrection, is wholly without foundation, and is certainly not true. It differs in its ends, in its circumstances, its manner, and, in fact, in all its characteristics, and is in no sense a pattern. It is not at all probable that he even put on his glorified body when he rose from the dead, any more than it is that the son of the widow of Nain or Lazarus did when he restored them to life. They were each in their order sub- lime miracles, which demonstrated the power of MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 63 Christ over death ; but neither of them was the put- ting on of immortality, and had none of the marks of resurrection, as it is to be of the saints. They are not patterns, but proofs. If we could reach a knowl- edge of Christ's glorified body — the body which he assumed at the ascension, and which he took into heaven, and in which he now appears — we should then have a pattern ; for he " shall change our vile body, that it maybe fashioned like unto his glorious body ;" but of that glorified body we know nothing, except that it is not of the fashion of his earthly body. When he assumed it, and how, we know just as little as we do of the kind and manner of the transforming change which will pass upon his living saints at his second coming. To assume to be in- formed is to be wise above what is written. The fact, then, that he returned to life in the body that was crucified and buried, and the fact that others were restored in their natural bodies, cannot be taken as proof that we are so to be raised. There is proof positive that we will not, as we shall show further on. It is the image of the heavenly and not of the earthy that we are to put on. It is possible that they who appeared at the time of the crucifixion were in the resurrection state ; and that Moses and Elias were in the resurrection state, wearing their immortal bodies ; but other cases were no more than resuscitation, or resurrections to natural life, and no more illustrate the doctrine of the im- 164 BEYOND THE GRAVE. mortal life than would the resuscitation of a neigh- bor of ours by a miracle were he to remain among us for a term of years, buying and selling, and mar- rying and having children, and ultimately dying. Neither the word resurrection, then, nor the fact of our Lord's resurrection, nor other resurrections wrought by our Lord, explain or illustrate the res- urrection state. And they are never supposed so to do in the holy Scriptures. They do exactly this, and no more : they show the power of Christ over death, and confirm his doctrine of the immortal res- urrection life, and all his doctrines as well. What the resurrection state is, so far as these events sig- nify, remains an open question. There is not a syl- lable to the contrary of this in the gospel narrative. The miraculous appearances and disappearances of Jesus after his resurrection are not in disproof; they are only of a piece with the whole history of his earthly life, in which the supernatural is as conspic- uous as the natural. They touched and handled him ; and the fact of his eating several times is recorded, which is inconsistent with the idea that he was clothed with his resurrected body. He de- clared himself to have " flesh and bones," which it is expressly said do not inherit the resurrection state. The whole account is the simple narrative of a man who was condemned to die, who was publicly exe- cuted, was dead and buried, and who, on the third day, appeared to his friends, and mingled with them MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 65 for about forty days. The manner of his life among them being no more mysterious than it had been before he died, and, in fact, creating the idea that he was to be permanent with them in the establish- ment of an earthly kingdom. On one occasion, in fact, he in effect declares that he had not entered the resurrection state — he had not yet put off the earthly and put on the heavenly. He still stood in the flesh, and lived a natural life among them. His glorified humanity was assumed at or after the scene on Olivet, and no historian has given any account of it. Stephen tells of seeing it when heaven opened, " and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man stand- ing on the right hand of God." But he does not undertake to describe it, but we may venture to say the Son of Mary was greatly changed in the fashion and substance of his bodily presence. Paul, also, gives an account of seeing him " as of one born out of due time." He does not say when ; whether it was a form in that light which smote him on his way to Damascus, or that time when he was caught up to heaven, whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell, when he heard words it would not be lawful to utter ; but whether this or that he does not attempt to describe his appearance. John, the beloved, saw him also, in the vision of Patmos. With the boldness of love he describes him : "And 1 66 BEYOND THE GRAVE. . . . I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of* man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow ; and his eyes were as a flame of fire ; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace." Who is not reminded in this description of the scene at the transfiguration? We shall be changed, not like unto the body of the post-resurrection his- tory, while he yet tarried among us, but like unto the body he received amid the splendor of the Olivet scene, when the earthly was exchanged for the heavenly. It remains that we examine particular passages, more particularly describing the resurrection life : possibly they may shed some light on our path. There are, so far as I know, three views on the subject : — First. That which teaches a resurrection at some remote future, of the precise body laid in the grave. Second. A resurrection of a body from some in- destructible germ in a remote future. Third. A resurrection or emergence at the time of death of a spiritual body. I have tried, with great honesty and prayerUil and patient study, to compare these several theo- ries, and elect between them, and I am in candor compelled to admit that I cannot reach a conclu- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 67 sion. I do not believe that any has the data for an undoubted determination. The substance of truth lies within the circle of the three, but precisely what it is seems to me indeterminable. That the first theory is false, so far forth as it teaches a literal resurrection of the precise substance of the body that dies, I cannot doubt, though there are passages which seem to teach it. Such are the following : Isa. xxvi, 19 ; Dan. xii, 2 ; John v, 28, 29 ; xi, 23, 24; Acts iv, 2; xxiv, 15; 1 Cor. xv, 42; 1 Thess. iv, 16. If I can understand language, these passages do certainly teach a general resurrection at the end of the world, and in connection with a final and general judgment. The attempt to ex- plain them so as to mean a resurrection and judg- ment which is now progressing, or so as to refer them to any local and temporal event, or to any facts in the current of providential history, is not satisfactory. It must be that our Lord designed to teach some special and grand event, in which all na- tions and all men shall simultaneously participate, and from which they shall date a new departure, and which is in some way connected with their emerg- ence from death — the resurrection of the dead. That all the dead do then appear in bodies I find it impossible to doubt, but that they are substan- tially the bodies in which they once lived on the earth I cannot for one moment believe. Here I rest. To my mind the Master has spoken, 1 68 BEYOND THE GRAVE. and I dare not doubt. There are difficulties to my tastes and general sense of what is fitting, and some difficulties to my reason, but none such as to em- barrass my faith in the wisdom of the arrangement. For some suitable reason the Infinite has seen fit to close up the present order with the spectacular mag- nificence of a general judgment, and some kind of new departure for the race, called a resurrection ; an event in which all the dead shall at one time stand before their Judge, who is, also, their Creator and Redeemer, also, in the presence of perhaps all spiritual orders and beings, receive the sentence which shall give them their eternal rank ; an event which is the culmination and close of the mediato- rial kingdom ; an event which, all in all, may be, and probably will be, one of the most significant and important in its lessons and impressive influences, which ever did or ever will occur, from the inaugu- ration of creation to the utmost bounds of eternity. Such seem to be the just inferences from the ex- press and many-times-repeated language of holy writ. The only escape from the inference is, the ingenious conception that we are now in the end of the world, and that the great judgment is now pro- gressing; that the thrones are now set, and that at the moment of death we take our place among the gathering multitude before the Judge. I find it impossible to accept this imaginary fact as the meaning of such passages as this : — MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 69 " When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory : and before him shall be gathered all nations : and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats : and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre- pared for you from the foundation of the world : for I was ahungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered, and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and clothed thee ? or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee ? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels : for I was ahungered, and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me not in : naked, and ye clothed me 22 170 BEYOND THE GRAVE. not : sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee ? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlast- ing punishment : but the righteous into life eter- nal." Matt, xxv, 31-46. I have not named the difficulties encompassing the doctrine of a literal resurrection of the body laid in the grave, or divested by the spirit in death. They are many and great, but such as infinite power and wisdom could overcome. They are not, there- fore, absolutely insurmountable; and as the resur- rection is God's work, the magnitude of the diffi- culties weighs nothing. I am compelled to reject the theory on entirely other grounds. It taxes faith for a bootless object. It supposes infinite trouble for no adequate end. There is no reason why the particular particles that happened to be in a body a thousand years ago should be extricated from other particles to make a resurrection body of. They have no such relation to the personality as to make it an object. The idea rests on a mistake. There is no significance in the supposed fact. These criticisms would be improper if it were a revealed doctrine ; but it is not, and, in fact, is in direct an- MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 171 tagonism to express declarations of the Scriptures. In direct answer to the question, " With what body do they come ? " — a question as little equivocal as language will express — inspiration replies: " That which thou sowest is not the body that shall be ;" "so also is the resurrection of the dead;" "There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body ;" "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly;" "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." The doctrine of the resurrection is often referred to, and many times asserted. Once it is stated, with great particularity, and with manifest purpose to give it scientific, exact expression. The apostle, and behind him the Holy Spirit, supposes an inquirer, in fact an objector, to say : " How are the dead raised up?" and, "With what body do they come? " These are manifestly two questions. He takes them up in their order and frames his answer accordingly. To the question, " How are the dead raised up? " he refers to the common processes of nature in the vegetable world for the answer, assuming a general analogy and assigning a common cause. Thou inconsiderate man, " that which thou sowest is not quickened, ex- cept it die." The problem is the same. The power which is adequate in the one case is adequate also in the other. "With what body do they come?" Inconsiderate man, dost thou inquire this? "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that I7 2 BEYOND THE GRAVE. shall be, but bare grain, [a single seed,] it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain : but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body." Consider further : " All flesh is not the same flesh : but there is one kind of flesh of men, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial : but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead." The substance of this part of the answer is, that as in the springing of seed the product is not of the precise substance that dies, but is an evolution from it, so is the body of the resurrection. The analogy that is asserted is not an analogy of processes, but of products. It is not implied that the buried body vegetates like a seed of grain and grows another body. That is not the point of the illustration. It is not pertinent as answer to the questions. The questions are as to the power of the resurrection, and as to the result — the possibility and the accom- plished fact. "How" is it possible? by what power " are the dead raised up?" The impossibility was evidently in the objector's mind. The answer refers him to an equally difficult case, which transpires constantly in the course of nature. " With what MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 173 body do they come ? " It may be that two points of difficulty are broached here, What substance is that of which the new body is composed ? and, What will be its fashion ? To both these aspects of the question answer is made : First, It is not the substance of the body that was ; this is explicit ; it is not a reproduc- tion of the old body. This fact seems to suggest to the writer the fecundity of the divine resources, and gives rise to the beautiful illustration, " But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh : but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from an- other star in glory." As if he would say, God will not find it difficult to devise a suitable body. Having furnished such proof of his ability, his skill will not fail him now. And then he proceeds to state in what particulars, having said before it would not be the same body that was cast, it would be diverse from it.^The statement is one of the most *r^ luminous and beautiful to be found in our language : f " So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory : it is sown in weak- 174 BEYOND THE GRAVE. ness, it is raised in power : it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. How- beit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is spir- itual. The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy : and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot in- herit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery ; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." The analysis of this wonderful statement presents the following points : As we are at present, we are of the earth, earthy, the children of the first Adam ; as we shall be, we will be of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. Then he asserts the similarity of the members to the head : " As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy : and as is the heavenly, MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 175 such are they also that are heavenly." Having as- serted the principle of resemblance, he states the order : " Howbeit that was not first which is spirit- ual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is spiritual." The order is one of progression from inferior to superior conditions : we begin in the earthy with the image of the earthy, we come to the image and estate of the heavenly ; and we are reminded that the image of the earthy cannot carry over into the heavenly. Special attention is called to this: " Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery ; We shall not all sleep," but, whether we sleep or not, " we shall all be changed ; " then in logical order follows an account of the change, showing the particulars in which the bodies we shall attain will differ from those we now wear. To this especially I now call attention, and it will ap- pear how the new bodies are fitted to the new state, and how the old bodies are retired as unadapted. The only sense in which we can predicate identity of body is the permanence and continuity of the animating principle. If the same life in a body makes it the same body, though not a particle of its former substance remains, then there is no difficulty in the doctrine of the identity of the resurrection body with the body laid aside at death, and, indeed, with all the bodies that have vanished during a long I70 BEYOND THE GRAVE. life. If the life force is of the spirit, or even of some other indestructible appendage of the spirit, and if its presence in an organism makes the identity of the organism ; then the permanence or sameness of the life force will maintain the identity of the organ- ism if it changes every particle of its substance every year or every hour. To the doctrine of the iden- tity of the resurrection body and the body laid in the grave, in this sense, there can be no objection. See Dr. Hodge. But the employment of the term identity, in this sense, is misleading. Christian doc- tors commit a blunder in seeming to be anxious to retain terms that belong to vanished theories. They know full well that the phrase "identical body" was designed to express the precise or substantial material particles, as to number, laid in the grave; they know that these were supposed to be raised up. Why try to justify the retention of the phrase when the sense is confessedly surrendered. Either stand to it, or relinquish it. We abandon it as mis- leading — as the meaningless ghost of an exploded idea. The doctrine of the resurrection is a true and divine doctrine, but it cannot afford to be loaded with phrases that misrepresent it. The propositions which the New Testament is responsible tor may be summated as follows : — First. Resurrection is a predicate of those who, rather than that which, dies ; all the dead shall be raised into life again. MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 17/ Second. The resurrection will be at the end of the world, or what is called the last day, and in con- nection with Christ's coming to judgment. Third. The resurrection of the saints will take place first, and will be unto everlasting life, and that of the ungodly, following, will be unto everlasting damnation. Fourth. In the resurrection there will be a defini- tive contrast of the bodies raised to the bodies re- tired by death. Whether the bodies raised up shall consist of any part of the material substance of the bodies laid down, and if so, what proportion, is not revealed in the New Testament, and cannot be known by man ; but in what particulars the new will differ from the old is minutely described. There are some general descriptions which point to the subject on which the change is wrought, and to the change which is wrought. " Who will change our vile body." This language locates the change in the body. The adjective points to its order and use. It is not descriptive of an ethical quality, but rather of the low order and ends of its organization. " And fashion it like unto his glorious body." This marks the change wrought. Here again the adjec- tive implies nothing of ethical quality in the sub- ject, but simply increased perfection of fashion and uses. The subject is our body. Our body will be changed from the present vile one to one fashioned 23 178 BEYOND THE GRAVE. after the glorious body of Christ. The new one for which the old one is changed need carry up no substance of the old, even as our present body carries up nothing from our body that was twenty years ago. That the body is the subject of the change appears in that entire discussion carried on in 1 Cor. xv. The change wrought is described with great beauty and minuteness of detail. It is the body that is sown. No one can doubt this. What is meant by the sowing is not so plain but that there may be honest difference of judgment ; some suppose the sowing to represent birth, others are sure it represents death ; the former think it is a description of the body as it is in life, the latter do not doubt that it is predicated of the body as it will be when it is cast off by the spirit ; but, in fact, it is of no consequence which is the true meaning. Whether this or that, the thing intended is not af- fected. The object is to describe the difference between the body in which we live noAV and the body in which we shall live hereafter. The state- ment is deft and plain. " It [the body we now have] is sown in corruption." The word corruption describes a quality of the body we now have. The term signifies a tendency to decay — to ultimate de- composition. It is the equivalent of the statement, the body we now have has in it an element of dis- organization, which sooner or later must overthow and destroy it. This is its nature. The truth of MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 79 the statement is indisputable. " It is raised in in- corruption." Some make much account of the rel- ative in this comparison. Not another body, we are told, but it, the same body. The grammatical construction would seem to imply this : but is it certain that it was the meaning in the writer's mind ? We doubt. The contrast is between the body a man has before death and the body he has after death. It, the body he has before death, is cor- ruptible. It, the body he has after death, is incor- ruptible ; they are not the same, but different. " It is raised in incorruption." The body of the resur- rection life has no such tendency to disorganization. Its constituent particles are not of a kind to be im- pressed by the destructive forces which prey on and overthrow the present organism. Neither time nor attrition of elements touch it. No organism con- stituted by the union of earthly elements can have this quality. " It is sown in dishonor." There is probable reference to its low uses. It is the equiv- alent of the statement, This body, that we now have, while serving its ends well, and therefore not to be despised, is, nevertheless, a body subject to base and degrading uses ; the seat of low and mere- ly animal passions and lusts and necessities ; and often the vile incitant to, and instrument of, sin. " It is raised in glory ;" the body that shall be will have none of these elements of degradation and badges of shame, but will be glorious in its offices, l80 BEYOND THE GRAVE. in its incitants, in its appointments ; purged and purified from all that is low and vile, it shall take on honor and glory. It shall have no more lusts and beastly wants to tear and devour it, but adapta- tion to high and noble uses only. This implies a radical change of the entire organism. " It is sown in weakness." The word here employed signifies extreme impotency, and, we doubt not, refers to the universal insufficiency of the body, its utter incom- petence to serve the high demands of the spirit it shrines. It refers (as, indeed, do all the adjectives employed) to inherent qualities ; the body that now is is inherently weak — insufficient ; it is so consti- tuted that its sphere is contracted and its energy evanescent ; it is too weak for many uses, and can only be used intermittently about the things to which it is adapted, and this is of its very nature. It was contrived only to do small service, and placed in an economy where it would rest a large part of the time. Nothing is more apparent than that the present organism was not contrived for constant ac- tivity. " It is raised in power." The word here employed signifies strength, power of achievement, sufficiency ; and it marks the fact that the body that shall be will have adaptation to greatly enlarged and perpetual activity ; it will neither be limited in measure nor endurance. We shall find it capable of great and unwearying activity. It will be fitted for an economy where there is no night, no period for MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. l8l repose. " It is sown an animal body :" " it is raised a spiritual body." These last words are comprehen- sive of the whole change, and indicate the radical difference, the difference in the very nature and economy of the two bodies — the body that now is and that which is to come. The one as constructed for the earth, and itself earthy ; the other as con- structed for the heavens, and itself heavenly. And, having defined the difference, Paul says : " And as we have [now] borne the image of the earthy, we shall also [then] bear the image of the heavenly." Lifted out of " flesh and blood," which " cannot inherit the kingdom of God," " we shall be changed in a mo- ment, in the twinkling of an eye," " and this mortal shall put on immortality," " and so we shall be ever witl\ the Lord." This is the crown of all. The glorious new body that shall be given us shall never- more be subject to death — neither by inherent cor- ruptibility nor by any decree of destruction. To the view of the resurrection here presented there can be no objection. It is in the line of di- vine analogies. It is free from grotesque and offen- sive implications. It is reasonable. It harmonizes with Scripture statements. It meets all the de- mands of the affections. It is sublime. It is in ac- cord with a plan of progressive glory, according to the Pauline idea. The resurrection state is the culmination of glori- fied humanity ; is the change of the earthly for the 1 82 BEYOND THE GRAVE. heavenly ; is the putting off of flesh and blood, and the putting on of the spiritual body. The resurrec- tion is the standing again after death ; the body of the resurrection is the body with which the spirit is clothed for its celestial life. The organizing life- principle is uninterrupted and identical. It begins in the natural, and weaves its curious integuments of dust for earthly use ; it weaves the new robes for the departing soul ; it fashions the celestial organ- ism ; or, more properly, God gives us a body, as it hath pleased him, now and beyond the grave. If any imagine that they find comfort in the idea that the exact oxygen and other elements are gath- ered up, a little reflection will suffice to correct the delusion. It is the person we want, not the dust he wore either in his youth or age. We loved him in silken or coarser garments, in the radiance of his vigor and in his withered and bowed form. Give us back the person with a new body of celestial mold, and we shall embrace it with the old death- less affection. We loved it in the form in which we knew it ere it departed from us. We shall love it the more that it will never again sicken and die, that its tears will all be wiped away, and that it will neither hunger or thirst any more. I wish to put on record here that, for myself, there is nothing in any particle of flesh or blood that ever belonged to my body that creates in me the least desire to ever see it again. This body of MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 83 earthy matter I am perfectly willing to put off, that I may put on one that will answer the higher ends of my existence better. That body which I look for, the resurrection body, with which my Lord will clothe me, I am sure will satisfy all my desires, whether it be simply a lineal successor of this in unbroken continuity, or merely a partaker of its "essence or made of its very substance. It suffices that I shall rise again in a deathless form, to be the inhabitant of a deathless world. For that body there is no pain, no want, no decay. Beyond the grave we have found that the spirit is immortal, and that it will be clothed upon with a new form when the old one perishes — " a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" — a house, not a tent. Is there any thing further made known? We think, yes. The heavenly witness reveals many things about that life Negatively: In general, it will not be like this life ; we may venture to say it will differ in every accident. It will have no day and night, " for there is no night there;" no rising and setting sun, " iox the Lord God and the Lamb are the light of it." What a change does all that imply ! No wearisome days, no sorrowful nights ; no hunger or thirst ; no anxiety or fears ; no envies, no jealousies, no breaches of friendship, no sad separations, no distrusts or forebodings, no self-reproaches, no enmities, no bit- ter regrets, no tears, no heartaches : " And there 1 84 BEYOND THE GRAVE. shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor' crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed away." Leaving sin behind, we shall leave all the woes that spring from its deadly root ; delivered from the fleshly tenement, we shall be delivered from its festering ills, infirmities, and cares. The dark cloud of life's brief and troubled day will float away into oblivion, or be remembered only as a sorrow that is gone. So much is made known by " the true and faithful witness." " Old things are passed away ; behold, all things are become new." " And I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." Of the glory of the realm be- yond we can know but little. It is unlike anything we have experienced : " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." What the appearance of that world is, we cannot imagine. Scriptural images convey no idea; their magnificence dazzles us, but gives no concept. Revelation is a blank on the subject, and the soul and sense are silent. What the accidents that make it desirable — its beauty, its conveniences — we must die to know. All that has come to us leaves but a bewildering sense, a confused imagination of unim- aginable glory. It will not be like our dreams, but it will greatly transcend them. So much is implied in what is revealed. W^e are just as little informed MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 85 as to the appearance of celestial beings : what they k are in external form, how they are classified, how they communicate together, what their friendships, how they express them, how they employ their time, what constitutes home and society; not a word of information imparting definite ideas has reached us on these points. The imagery used dazzles us: we walk among thrones and dominions; principalities and powers; mighty hosts of angels and archangels ; multitudes that no man can num- ber, who have come " out of great tribulation, and who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." A magnificent pageant passes before us, which we believe to be worthy and noble ; but, after all, we have no conception of what its members are like, or of the accidents of the life they live. They are immortal, they are loyal and holy ; many of them have lived for centuries, and perhaps millions of years ; they are honored and illustrious spirits ; they have passed through great and memorable epochs, and sublime personal his- tories ; but how they live and what honored service they do we cannot tell. It is revealed that they are spirits, and this fur- nishes some clew. Freed from physical drudgery, they live as spirits ; their happiness, their pursuits, their loves are spiritual. Three things characterize spirits : they think, they feel, they will. Their life is in knowing, in loving, in free spontaneous self- 24 1 86 BEYOND THE GRAVE. government and volitional activity. There is reason to suppose that acquiring knowledge will be their great and tireless pursuit ; that they are bound to- gether by the strongest love ; that in each other they have the greatest happiness ; that they are mutually helpful ; that rising above all their loves is adoring and worshipful love to their glorious Sov- ereign ; that in useful and ecstatic ministries they grow up into ever-increasing glory and perfection of character. To my own mind, when I look in the direction of the future, one picture always rises — a picture of ravishing beauty. Its essence I believe to be true. Its accidents will be more glorious than all that my imagination puts into it. It is that of a soul forever growing in knowledge, in love, in holy endeavor ; that of a vast community of spirits, moving along a pathway of light, of ever-expanding excellence and glory; brightening as they ascend, becoming more and more like the unpicturable pattern of infinite perfection ; loving with an ever-deepening love ; glowing with an ever-increasing fervor; rejoicing in ever-advancing knowledge ; growing in glory and power. They are all immortal. There are no fail- ures or reverses to any of them. Ages fly away ; they soar on with tireless wing. ^Eons and cycles advance toward them and retire behind them ; still they soar, and shout, and unfold ! I am one of that immortal host. Death cannot MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 87 destroy me. I shall live when stars grow dim with age. The advancing and retreating aeons shall not fade my immortal youth. Thou, Gabriel, that stand- est nearest the throne, bright with a brightness that dazzles my earth-born vision, rich with the experi- ence of uncounted ages, first-born of the sons of God, noblest of the archangelic retinue, far on I shall stand where thou standest now, rich with an equal experience, great with an equal growth ; thou wilt have passed on, and, from higher summits, wilt gaze back on a still more glorious progress ! Beyond the grave ! As the vision rises how this side dwindles into nothing — a speck — a moment — and its glory and pomp shrink up into the trinkets and baubles that amuse an infant for a day. Only those things, in the glory of this light, which lay hold of immortality seem to have any value. The treasures that consume away or burn up with this perishable world are not treasui'- Those only that we carry beyond are worth the saving. 1 88 BEYOND THE GRAVE. THE DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. The discussion following has been already sub- stantially given to the public. It is here repro- duced, with the author's revision and corrections : — Do souls, in the realm beyond death, meet and recog- nize those with whom they were associated in this earthly life ? There may be subjects of greater practical moment : there can scarcely be one of more thrilling interest. It has a voice for us all, and, in moments of supremest need, comes home to every heart. As often as we think of the dead, and remember the love we bore them — and when do we not think and remember? — as often as we look upon the living, and reflect how soon we shall be parted from them — as often as we think of ourselves, of the exceeding brevity and uncertainty of the life we are now living, and how soon all its joys and sorrows will be extinguished in the grave, which stands open to receive us — and whenever we are startled with intimations of eternity and the awful mysteries it holds in its embrace for us — in all such seasons the question crowds upon us with mastering influence. Displaced for a little by pres- ent urgencies, it soon returns; silenced for a moment, it comes back with more clamorous pleadings. Nor is it in morbid seasons alone, when the heart is smitten with grief, or when meditations of the grave and approaching separations cast somber shadows over life, or when we stand shivering on the brink, expecting every moment when we shall plunge; but at all times, when- DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. I&9 ever the subject is brought to our notice, it at once seizes us with masterful power, and holds us for the while its willing captive. It is nature's yearning — love cherishing her idols, and refusing to give them up — the heart clinging even in death to its treasures. The question meets us every-where ; in the cot and palace ; trembling on the lips of youth and age ; of womanhood and manhood ; coming alike from the re- tired and uncultivated; from the stoical and sensitive; from all grades and castes of men ; in all states and con- ditions of life : " In the next life shall we know and have again the loved ones of other days ? Do the unions of life carry over and outlast the ravages of death ? " How many times it has been propounded to me in whispers, by lips trembling with solicitude, speaking the fears and hopes of hearts breaking with the pain of uncertainty ! It may not be to-day ; but there come moments in every life when, were the globe gold, it would be willingly given for a contentful answer. The moment is now with some of my readers, and to such especially I come with greetings and messages of consolation. The conceded difficulty of the subject, with its inter- est to the affections, furnishes the only reason for the discussion. Were the answer perfectly easy and satis- factory to all minds, the discussion would be uncalled for. The subject is of a class which, from its nature, lies exclusively in the domain of faith, and precludes possible positive knowledge. The utmost objective point of our inquiry is to ascertain whether there is ground for faith. We do, and will, believe. We seek to find whether our belief is merely the conjecture of the imag- es 190 BEYOND THE GRAVE. ination to allay the clamor of interested affections, or a faith resting, or possible to rest, on rational foundations. Have we reason to believe? Many truths, most import- ant of all, elude knowledge, but nevertheless furnish ample ground of belief. Is this one of them ? Per- haps, nay, certainly, no man living has it in his power to convince us that of his personal knowledge he can affirm or deny. The utmost we can do is, believe or disbelieve. The reasons must be for or against faith. It is the duty and interest of rational beings to find which. This is the object of our search. As you expect, we take the affirmative of the question. . The dead do rejoin and recognize the friends they knew and loved on earth. If we doubted, we could write no line that would not pain you to read; no line that would not torture us to write. If we disbelieved, neither tongue nor pen should ever be permitted to lift the napkin from the face of the dead hope. If we knew to the contrary, in mercy to mankind we would hide the awful secret in our own bosom, and long to terminate the anguish of the discovery in the beneficent uncon- sciousness of the grave itself, lest in some moment of agony it should be wrung from our hearts, and become the dreadful heritage of a sorrowful world. I believe, therefore I write. Before we enter the discussion there are two or three preliminary matters which ought to have brief attention. Truth is always precise. It has no margins. It is tim or that, or more or less; but never both. We need to understand precisely what that is which we believe and defend, and what it is not. DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 191 Our thesis does not include the idea that the special relationships of this life carry over to the next, and are renewed and perpetuated there as here. This is not only not probable, but is certainly not the case. We refer now to those precious relations constituting the family bond : the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister. The family itself, with all its inclusions, is an earthly institution. It typifies nothing that is permanent except the one great family of which God is the Father, and we children. Reason alone would infer the abrogation of all such relations, inasmuch as that for which they were instituted termi- nates with the present earthly state. But our Lord au- thoritatively settles it in precise terms. The occasion was the memorable case submitted to him by the Sad- ducees as against the doctrine he taught of a resurrec- tion of the dead — a doctrine which they rejected — the case of the woman who had seven husbands. They raised the question : " Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven ? for they all had her." To that question " Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." The answer is unequivocal, and settles the question by divine authority. The same is doubtless true of the paternal relation ; and for the same reason, the end or object of the relation ceases with this life. The memory of the former relationship will remain, as the memory of every other state and event of the earthly life, in fullness and completeness; but all that was in- 192 BEYOND THE GRAVE. eluded in it and constituted it will cease. Parent and child will meet, not now to hold the relation of parent and child, but with the recollection that in a former state they were so related ; the same will be true of husband and wife. The peculiar demands for, and re- sponsibilities of, all earthly relations are put off with the earthy which shrined them. The husband will not want a wife, nor the wife a husband ; the parent will not want a child, nor the child a parent. There will be nothing remaining in any to make possible either the desire or fact of such relations. The second thing not implied in our thesis is, the continuance of the peculiar loves or affections in the next state. I say the peculiar loves. This we think is clear, and for the same reasons as above. The relation ceasing, and the end for which it was appointed ceasing, the peculiar affection, which was its bond and cement, will also cease. More plainly, I mean to say that con- jugal love, or the love subsisting between husband and wife, and making the ground of marriage — and paternal and filial love, or the loves subsisting between parent and child, making the ground of peculiar mutual obliga- tion, and therefore special interest — is an arrangement for time and probation, and will not obtain in eternity. The husband and wife will not love as husband and wife, the parent and child as parent and child ; but a com- mon affection, varying it may be — nay, will be — in de- gree, will unite them as glorified beings. The peculiar affection, in both cases, having been for aw /nd which no longer exists, the appointment will also discontinue. In all this statement I have italicized the word pecul- A DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 193 iar, and for a reason. Conjugal love and filial and pa- rental love, in their highest purity, are God's blessed gift to man in his earthly life ; but they are of the earth. There is a love that is celestial, and without earthly alloy. The two affections grow often together. When we say that the peculiar love does not carry over, we do not mean that there is not a deeper and holier love uniting souls in the life beyond who were so related in this life. Whatever may be the common loves of all holy beings in eternity — and it is our belief that love is the very essence of heaven — we cannot doubt that those whom we have loved most here, loved most purely and tenderly, will be likely to be dearest to us there. They will still be our treasures. All that they ever were to us will still be remembered; the hold they had on our being will still be felt in more exalted forms. The no- ble passion, purified from all alloy, will rise into far grander and more ravishing intensity. The imperfect earthly love will be transformed into the perfect heav- enly. The relations will be sunk, but the bond will be tightened. They will be greatly more to us than they ever were on earth, and more to us, we may venture to believe, than they could have been, had they not been bone of our bone and heart of our heart. It is proba- ble that, lifted into serene regions of perfect holiness, and delivered from all the influence of sense, memory will cease to recall all things that would alloy or dis- turb the perfect peace and rapturous happiness of the soul, whether they be things of a purely personal char- acter, or which relate to those we have known and loved. If remembered at all, any sting that might have been in 25 1 94 BEYOND THE GRAVE. them will be extracted. But more on this point in the progress of this discussion. Let us now proceed to a positive view of the subject. Our proposition is: "In the next world we shall know / and remember those known in this life." The proposition, as I mean it to be understood, has these two parts : First, when we pass into the next state, we shall carry with us a vivid recollection of this state ; of persons, things, and events, such as we take with us when we go from one country to another ; from England to France, or from France to the United States; such as we carry with us through the successive grades of natural life. Second, that we shall meet in the next state persons known to us in this, and shall recognize them as Jane and Mary, Thomas and Samuel, as we should recognize them in London or in Paris. Upon the first part of the statement there can scarcely be two opinions; I think there are not, among people whose opinions are entitled to consideration. So far as I know, all who believe in future existence at all agree that memory will carry over, and that it will be perfect; and yet as this point stands in important relations to future arguments it may be well to establish it. For- tunately, the case is not difficult to make out, both on rational and scriptural grounds. We will name both classes of proof — rational and scriptural — proofs de- duced from the nature of the soul, and proofs from the teaching of the word of God. And, first, I suggest, to suppose the soul in the future state bereft of memory is to suppose it existing in that state without any distinct consciousness of ever having existed before, inasmuch DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. I95 as consciousness of a previous life can be no other than consciousness of the memory of what was thought, done, and suffered in that state, or a recollection of the expe- riences through which it passed. Consciousness is con- fined to the active states of the soul. It does not reach to the being itself except as active. That is, the only- means we have of knowing ourselves as existing is by- being conscious of our activity; and the only means we have of knowing that we are beings who did exist in the past is the consciousness we have of remembering the past activities we either suffered or performed — the thoughts, loves, and volitions we experienced and exer- cised. We retain and restore our former selves wholly by restoring these experiences. Destroy them, and though we be supposed to have existed, we cannot know that we have existed. All previous existence must be an utter blank. Second, I suggest, that accompanying the loss of the memory of past existence, and growing out of it, would be the loss of all ideas and knowledge gained, and all char- acter acquired, in that state; and the soul thus bereft would enter upon its future career, as it entered upon this, in utter infancy ; and indeed, morally and intellect- ually, it would be a new soul, dating its birth and con- sciousness from the moment of its dislodgment from the body, just as we date ours with birth. It would be, to all intents and purposes, beginning an existence de novo. There would be nothing carried over from the former existence but a spirit without acquired ideas or charac- ter of any kind, or even the knowledge of its previous being, if that were possible. To allow this, it would I96 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. not be unreasonable to suppose that possibly we may have already lived through pre-existent states, of which we retain no memory; and the doctrine of pre-existence in an endless round of transmigrations might then be true, and we be wholly unconscious of it. The idea is subversive of all established views of psychology, which predicate of memory that it is an essential faculty of the soul, which remains with it as a part of its integrity. All observations, as recorded by the most careful and astute observers, tend to this view. Amid all changes, the soul chronicles its own history, and is able to identify itself by its remembrance of its history. It is as tena- cious of the past as it is conscious of the present. It is thus, and thus only, that we are able to know of our personal identity any two successive moments of time. Deprived of it, the self could only know itself as existing now, not as having existed yesterday. The idea sup- poses death to be different in its effects from what true philosophy warrants. The usual, and doubtless true, idea, is simply that death is the removal of the soul; its dislodgment, not its destruction ; its emergence, in the moment of death, into the future world, as a waking out of sleep, or as a passage through a dark vale, or over a river, transferring its entire self, as it transfers itself through the sleeping hours of the night to the waking in the morning from one city to another, with full consciousness and tin- robbed of its treasures, bearing with it the memory of the past into the glory of the future. Even those who imagine that the soul remains unconscious during the interval between death and the resurrection, hold that when it awakes it will be as if it had slept for a moment DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 1 97 or a night, and, waking, will find itself rehabilitated with all its former knowledges and experiences. But if these considerations be not sufficient, arising as they do from the mere operations of reason, there are some others, derived from the word of God, which per- fectly settle the case — some direct, some inferential. This, after all, is final authority. Neither sense nor rea- son furnishes much light on the subject of future exist- ence, either as to the fact of it or its mode. Reason supplies hints upon which conjectures arise, but is in- sufficient to bring contentful knowledge. God's word is the city of refuge to the anxious inquirer. If we re- ject it, no solid footing remains. What does it teach? is, therefore, the great question. Reason will not fail to approve what it authorizes ; for the Author of the Bible is the Author of reason. Right reason delights to walk in its greater light, and joyfully accepts its teaching. Appealing to this supreme authority, we find the doc- trine we have indicated abundantly established. First. It is the pervading doctrine of revelation that the pres- ent life is a probation ; the future life a state of rewards; thus showing that they stand intimately related, the one to the other. What we sow here we reap there ! This is a most important fact. Can it be supposed that the soul will enjoy a reward or endure a retribution for deeds of which it has no recollection? Is the thing possible ? Will it suffer perdition without any recollec- tion of the sins for which it suffers ? The idea is utterly inadmissible ! Will it enjoy the bliss of heaven, praising Christ forever as its great Saviour, without any remem- brance of the sins and sufferings from whicn ne re- I98 BEYOND THE GRAVE. deemed and saved it? The idea is absurd! Thus, whether we contemplate the bliss of the finally saved, or the sorrows of the finally lost, we are equally forced to the conclusion that they will have a vivid and thor- ough memory of the present state. It is absolutely impossible that there should be either rewards or punishments, in the proper sense of the words, and the soul be uninformed of the occasion of the suffering or enjoyment. Suffering may be inflicted and enjoyment bestowed without the idea of recom- pense ; but the idea of recompense cannot exist in the soul without the knowledge of that which occasions it ; and so a spirit cannot know or think itself as rewarded without the idea of that for which it is rewarded. To be conscious of a state of reward and retribution, heaven and hell must be known in their relations to this life. They have no moral significance without this. But if the very idea of reward in future life for deeds done in this implies the memory of such deeds, more strongly still do the Scripture accounts of the judgment, in which the rewards are to be given. Take a class of passages in which it is said account will be rendered to God in that day: "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." If there were not an- other, this passage is sufficient. " Every one shall give account of himself to God." "Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." Further, it is especially said, " Every man's work shall be made manifest : for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire." "Therefore, judge noth- DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 1 99 ing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise of God." Take the pas- sage from Matthew : — "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory : and before him shall be gathered all nations : and he shall separate them one from an- other, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, in- herit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world : for I was ahungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlast- ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels : for I was ahungered, and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took 200 BEYOXD THE CRAVE. me not in : naked, and ye clothed me not : sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahun- gered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee ? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment : but the righteous into life eternal." Many passages of like kind might be added; these will suffice. They establish, beyond all dispute, that at the judgment a thorough memory of tlie entire life will remain, so minute as to embrace thoughts, words, feel- ings, and actions. No one can read these passages and fail to be convinced, if they be true, that in the final judgment of men, whenever and however that may be, the souls judged will have an exact memory and con- sciousness of all the matters for which they are judged. The statements are wonderfully comprehensive, imply- ing that there will be such a quickening of memory as to restore all thoughts, all deeds, all feelings, all mo- tives, so that not only the external acts will pass in re- view, but the very secrets of the soul. The passage from Matthew, in that wonderful twen- ty-fifth chapter, is irresistible. Therein it is declared that the souls of all the dead will stand before God ; and in the judgment it will be specifically stated what their acts were toward each other for which they aie then and there condemned or approved; which implies that they will remember both the acts and the persons. DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 201 There could be no judgment without this. The court must have the case, and so must the party judged, if a sense of justice is to go with them from the judgment- seat. The proof is positive that memory survives death. This is all we now claim. But the case is too plain to need more extended ex- aminations. Let us now, therefore, proceed to the sec- ond part : The souls of the departed will recognize those known in this state. That is, souls do meet in the next world, and recognize each other as John or \. Mary, known in a former state. This proposition differs from the former in this particular : it includes identifi- cation of persons, as well as personal memory of rela- tions to them, or knowledge of them, in a previous state. It involves, not only that souls will carry with them the recollection that they once knew, in a former state, cer- tain persons by certain names ; but more, that this par- ticular spirit now present was that very person called father; this one, the person called son ; that one, wife A these, friends, of various degrees of intimacy, known at particular times and places, and bearing certain rela- tions to our acts and affections. This is the proposition we are now to establish. The range of argument is so wide that we cannot undertake to exhaust it. The first point we make is this : The souls of the departed will exist in society, will meet in the next state; by which I mean they will dwell in a place or places where they will be together and have intercourse. This is important. It is not in my plan to raise the question, sometimes mooted, of the materi- ality of the abode of the departed, saved or lost; or to 26 202 BEYOND THE GRAVE. indicate any opinion as to the locality of the places they shall inhabit. This one point only is now made : they will exist, somewhere and in some method, in society. I am free to acknowledge that, for myself, I know of nothing in revelation, and that is our only authority, that makes known any thing about the precise place in the universe where the saved or lost will finally dwell ; nor do I know any thing in revelation which gives me a clear and definite idea of the manner of their existence. There are hints, but they are not such as to admit dog- matism. They will exist, and it is now my object to show that they will exist together. I might urge, as a final consideration, and one of great weight, the universality and reasonableness of the belief; but as nothing short of revelation will be deemed final, and as it is final, our appeal will be to it alone. Still, let us for a moment look at the reasonableness of the supposition, aside from express revelation. Man is con- stituted for fellowship. His nature is constructed upon that idea. It is impossible to doubt this. Why should his history become a violent contradiction to his nature ? Why should he, after that he is made and endowed foi fellowship, become forever isolated and secluded ? If his nature tend to the fellowship of those of his own kind with a longing that is unappeasable, why suppose that he will become forever an alien to his own kind? If, while in the body, he cannot content himself with exile and loneliness, why, out of the body, suppose it will be otherwise ? Is it not the first and last and strongest instinct, wish, and desire of his heart, to find companionship ? Does he not, for the sake of it, endure DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 203 all toil and hardship and peril ? What is it that asserts its sway in death if it be not the hope and longing to join a celestial brotherhood ? What is it that solaces for the grief of parting with the living but the idea of join- ing the multitudes believed to be waiting on the other shore ? The sobbings of the farewell mingle with the kisses of the welcome. What says the word ? A few passages will suffice. From the Old Testament we select all that class which represent the deceased patriarchs as gathered with and to their fathers or people, in which an obvious allusion is made, not to the grave, but to the concourse of departed spirits. This is well known to have always been the understanding of the people whose worthies are referred to. " The Hebrews regarded life as a journey, a pilgrimage, on the face of the earth. The traveler, as they supposed, when he arrived at the end of his journey, which happened when he died, was re- ceived into the company of his ancestors who had gone before him. Opinions of this kind are the origin and ground of such phrases as ' to be gathered unto one's peo- ple,' 'to go to one's fathers.' " — Jahn s Archceology . Other particular passages, which will be quoted as bearing directly on the point of recognition, need not be named here. The New Testament is explicit. We will cite a few passages only to establish the principle. Take the words of Christ to his disciples, and through them to all Christians : " I go to prepare a place for you ; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." Again: "Father,! will that they also 204 BEYOND THE GRAVE. whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." Thus the saints are to be gathered to one place, where Christ is. The indirect assertion here is equal to the most direct and positive declaration. It shows that it is the will and purpose of the Redeemer to bring all the redeemed into the place where he himself is, that they may constitute a glorified society. To that end he goes to prepare a place for them, in which they shall all alike behold and share his glory. No just criticism can ex- tort from the words any other meaning. Many other passages are in accord with this interpretation. "Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that sit- teth on the throne shall dwell among them." "And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people ; and God himself shall be with them, and be their God." " For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God ; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air ; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." "But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first- born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 205 blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." " After this I beheld, and lo, a great mul- titude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands ; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. . . . And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes ? and whence came they ? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribula- tion, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple." But I need not extend. These texts establish all that we claim now : that souls will be gathered together in the same place, constituting an assemblage and society, taking part in the' same religious rites, joining their voices and uniting their hearts in the same strains and sentiments of worship. These and kindred Scriptures have inspired the whole Church of Christ, along all the Christian ages, with the idea of heaven as the final home where all the redeemed family meet and abide forever. Whatever diversities have existed on other subjects, on this there has been scarcely any disagreement. Living and dying, this hope has cheered all believers. There can be no question as to its scriptural authority. Here we rest it. The next point I make is: Thus assembled in one place, and united in one society, spirits will have knowl- 206 BEYOND THE GRAVE. edge of each other's presence, and will recognize those known in a former state. It is strange that a doubt ever should have arisen on the subject. The fact can only be explained on the principle that love takes fright when the slightest possi- bility of disappointment exists; and fear engenders doubt where no doubt is. The affections, in matters of great concern, demand absolute certainty, and when this cannot be attained, their repose is disturbed. The whole subject of the future life, both as to the fact and conditions, is matter of faith, not of knowledge. Sub- jects of faith, as a rule, may be subjects of doubt; and especially where the affections are interested. But let us attend to the argument. The first consideration I name is : The common con- sent of mankind. This, while it might not be final, I must think is of great weight. I have said the common consent of mankind. This may sound strange. The general supposition among Christians, perhaps, is, that they alone entertain this belief. A greater mistake could scarcely be conceived. It is, and has been, in some form the common heritage of humanity. It is not in contradiction of this state- ment that some men, and even some skeptical periods, have called it in question, or even denied it. There is no matter of knowledge or faith that has not been dis- puted. It remains true that no nation has been without it. It is traceable to the earliest antiquity, and has .de- scended, as a common heir-loom, to all the peoples of the globe. To whatever cause we ascribe it, its truth seems probable. The universal judgment so stamps it; DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 207 the common instinct pronounces in its favor. Upon these grounds alone it deserves high consideration, un- til reasons are shown against it. As beliefs always im- ply supposed reasons competent to produce them, a uni- versal belief would seem to imply a universal and strong ground in its favor ; or at least it must show so much that it is not esteemed repugnant to common reason. To strengthen this conviction, and, it may be, the orig- inal ground of it, is this further fact : We feel that it is a want of our nature — an implanted or constitutional demand. We yearn for it ; our nature craves it ; we feel that it must be so. The unappeasable desire con- structs for itself the hope and faith. Who dares say that the inference is irrational ? All analogies, at least, indi- cate the probable supply to an appetite as natural and inevitable as that for food. As well suppose a benign Creator to endow the stomach with eternal craving with- out providing a supply ! Thus, in the very longing of humanity, and in the common faith of the race, under all conditions, we find, as we think, a strong reason in favor of the doctrine : the voice of God in the heart of his child. He who creates the hunger of the affec- tions is also the author of the contentful faith. The one is prophetic of the other. What love longs for, and reason dimly discerns, faith, with a vision of longer range and more delicate perception, detects as real, and clings to as the supremest of all treasures. Who dares say that what is .concealed from sense, and what even transcends reason, may not be revealed in some way to the inner sense — consciousness itself? We name as a second consideration of weight, an in- 208 BEYOND THE GRAVE. ference from premises already established ; namely, first, memory, which we have seen will remain to the soul when it passes into the next world. This has been clearly shown both from reason and revelation. Second, it has been shown that in the next world men who lived together upon the earth, and were intimate in all social relations, will meet and dwell together in one place and in intimate social intercourse, communing together. Now, the inference, if not perfectly inevitable, is cer- tainly of the highest probability, that, so communing and so remembering, they will in some method recognize each other. There are two methods by which this would almost inevitably be brought about. Take first the most indirect — an interchange of remi- niscence. That the fellowship will be intellectual and affectional must result from the nature of the beings; and from the same cause it must, to a large extent, em- brace matters of personal history, observation, and ex- perience. It is impossible to conceive of spiritual be- ings dwelling together without such intercourse. They have no other life but that of ideas and loves, and the high activities which spring from them. Their whole na- ture would have to change radically ; they would have to become other beings than they are, to make it possible for them to exist together in oblivion of the past. They must enter into each other's life, or cease ii be of the kind of men. Inevitably, if in no other way, out of this must spring mutual recognition. They cannot progress far before they reach common ground. Two spirits communicating together recur to past life. An event is DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 209 introduced known to both. Upon inquiry, they find they are acquaintances — old familiar friends — husband and wife. The second is, direct recognition from external ap- pearances — the common means of recognition here. This will be immediate. So soon as a friend is seen he will be known, as we know the respective members of our families after a year's separation. This I must think will be a universal fact, and will preclude the tedious method already named. If recognition were not immediate, it would inevitably take place in the method already indicated ; but it will be direct and immediate. This will preclude the other. Why not ? Should it be objected that spirits have no external ap- pearance, no form, cannot be seen, we answer in two parts : — First. It is an assumption that finite spiritual beings are ever formless, and still more a groundless supposition that, because they are invisible to us, they are therefore invisible to each other. Our senses limit our percep- tions to material objects; but there is every reason to believe that this is a temporary arrangement. When we become spiritual, the requisite faculties will exist to put us in harmony with our new circumstances. When we need to communicate with spirits, we will come to the knowledge of the method. Second. The Scripture teaching is explicit, that they are formal and visible in heaven. Should it be objected again that, if visible and formal, they all resemble, and so qajinot be distinguished one from another, which is the vain imagination of some ; or, if thev do not resem- 27 2IO BEYOND THE GRAVE. ble, they at least have no badges or resemblances to their former selves remaining, by which they were known upon earth, which is the baseless idea of others — our answer is again in two parts : — i. That they look exactly alike, or so nearly so as to be indistinguishable, is not only an assumption, but an assumption contrary to all analogies, which show diver- sity, and not uniformity, to be a divine law; and also to the Scriptures, which represent the glorified as differing and distinguishable in the future life : They were not alike when upon earth, why should they be alike in heaven? No two things were ever known which were indistinguishable. Why shall the eternal law be re- versed ? If forms carved in the crude elements of earth are endlessly varied, we may be sure the heavenly or- ders will not be less individualized. 2. -That the spirit, when disembodied, retains no re- semblance to the former person, no marks or badges of any kind remaining, is also sheer assumption, and against the probabilities in the case. It is not for us to explain how such resemblances will be carried over and discovered ; it is sufficient that it is neither impossible nor improbable that they will be. The spiritual even here shines through the gross phys- ical, and becomes the most expressive manifestation of the person. The expression of the countenance sinks deeper and tarries longer than mere features. The spiritual organism will but unfold that expression in its ideal perfection. Freed from the rough marrings of the rude casket, we shall find the real person in its truest and most unblemished revelation. As the soul is the DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 211 deepest seat of personality, it will, when it reaches its fullest expression, most perfectly disclose the person we have known and loved. I do not myself believe that the cognition will be because of perpetuated exact re- semblance of form and feature. Form and feature here are often blemishes, disguises, malformations. Souls, clothed in spiritual bodies, will appear in perfect dress, with a beauty far surpassing any thing we knew of them when they were with us in houses of clay. Neverthe- less, we shall see and know them in their altered dress — know and see them as we did not on the earth — know them fully. Allowing this to be so, recognition would be immediate and inevitable ! And that it is so, leaving the region of conjecture alone, Scripture makes certain ; that is, that beings in the next world are formal and distinguishable, and re- tain resemblances to their former person when in the body, is plainly the Scripture doctrine. To support the position I allege two cases : The case of Samuel appear- ing to Saul, and the case of Moses and Elias appear- ing with our Saviour on the mount of transfiguration. Whatever view we take of the two cases, there can be no difference of judgment as to what they are intended to teach, and do teach, on the point in question. That in both cases they are true and veritable history we are unable to find any reason for doubt; but whether this be so or not does not affect the teaching. The dead are represented as appearing in such form as to be known. This is all that, for the present, we claim. Further evi- dence will appear on this point in the next argument. But if any should still find difficulty on the point of 212 BEYOND THE GRAVE. objection now noticed, the resurrection of the body must displace it entirely. No one is able to determine authoritatively what is the precise doctrine on the sub- ject of the resurrection. Many claim to, but it is a vain boast. There will be a resurrection of the dead— that we know. What the glory of it will be, we shall know hereafter. That the raised immortalized humanity will be greatly changed, we know; but what the precise na- ture and inclusions of the change, we shall know only when we behold and experience it. But whatever it is, it furnishes the means of perpetuated resemblances to the fashion of the present form. Possibly we shall find the change much less than we imagine — simply perfecting the being. The next and final consideration I have to present in favor of recognition is derived from the express teaching of revelation. The argument, even now, I think conclusive, could nothing more be alleged ; but God has been pleased to express himself plainly and directly upon the point, which puts it to rest forever with all who receive his teaching. We shall make the argument turn upon a few passages. The first text I offer is taken from Isaiah. It is a prophecy against the king of Babylon. It announces his downfall, and describes the sensation it would create on earth and also in the eternal world. It is a passage of great poetic beauty and high wrought imagery; but it is a revelation also of doctrine and a history of fact. (Chap, xiv.) " Hell [sheol, the invisible world] from be- neath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming : it DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 21 3 stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth ; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we ? art thou be- come like unto us?" etc. The obvious announcement of the passage is the death of the wicked king and his entrance into the next world, where he is known and recognized by the previously dead. It is true that this passage seems to be a highly imaginative picture of the humiliation of a proud monarch, when death dashes his scepter from his hand, and he descends from his pomp to the level of other perished despots, once as potent as himself; and so it may require to be interpreted with allowance ; but, however this may be, the chief assump- tion on which it rests must be supposed to be believed and accepted by the writer; namely, that the introduc- tion of spirits into the spiritual world is an event well known to those dwelling there, and also that the former history of the newly arrived is known likewise. This is the least significance the passage can possibly have. The next text I give as direct is the notable parable of the rich man and Lazarus, as found in the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke. "There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom : the rich man also died, 214 BEYOND THE GRAVE. and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue ; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed : so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house : for I have five brethren ; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets ; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will re- pent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." This case is explicit and covers the whole ground. It has this advantage, that it is the calm utterance of Him who never spoke with passion, and that it was de- signed to convey in the plainest manner his doctrine touching the state of the dead. The rich man sees Abraham : Abraham has therefore a visible and distin- guishable person. He sees Lazarus in his bosom: the same is true of him therefore. He knows them : spirits therefore have the means of knowing each other. He DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 2 1 $ remembers this life : memory therefore remains. The case covers the whole ground. But the principles that hold in this case hold in every case. The power by which this particular recognition was made implies like recognition in every case. There is nothing to make it exceptional. Nor does it change its form to call it a parable. We do not for a moment suppose it a veritable history. It is probably, as we think, purely a creation of our Saviour's mind. But it was created to teach truth. It is a statement of his doctrine in the substance of its utterance. If he did not set forth definitive ideas, he never did in any of his pub- lic or private sermons. The text must be abandoned, or the doctrine admitted. If the text is the word of God, no other is needed to establish the point for which we contend. Not less striking is the text containing the speech of David, in his lamentation over his child: "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." 2 Sam. xii, 23. The whole history shows that these are the words of triumph- ant hope — words with which the mourner comforted himself — and so illustrate his faith in the certainty of a speedy and perpetual reunion beyond the grave. Taking the whole scope of the argument, to my own mind, it is no more an open question ; it is a verity, equally established by natural reason and revelation. The force of the argument is only reached by taking into view all its elements. There are individual proofs which alone are conclusive; but the combined evi- dence is overwhelming. The whole system of revela- tion carries the spirit of the doctrine, and the entire i 2l6 BEYOND THE GRAVE. literature of the Christian ages is saturated with it. It impregnates the whole atmosphere of religious faith of all phases and dispensations. It is f he first and last de- mand of the affections. Millions have been consoled with it in hours of the deepest sorrow and bereavement; and other millions, in the unwavering faith of it, have passed the Jordan with shoutings of holy triumph. Mul- titudes without number, and in circumstances to give great weight to their words, have, like Stephen, died declaring that they saw heaven open, and beheld well- known friends waiting to receive them. I can no more doubt Stephen's vision than I can disbelieve the Sermon on the Mount ; and I know not why many others of God's dear children may not, as they have confidently declared, have been favored in like manner. To my own faith, it is as unfalteringly certain that death will bring me to those I loved and bring them to me, as it is that it will bring me to immortality. If the one is true the other must be. I must cease to be a man, and be clothed with some other order of life, before I could even consent to enter a heaven which is barren of the spirits who have been so dear to me on earth. Ruth's devotion demanded a home and a grave with her whom she loved; but not less did she demand a heaven with her. "Thy God shall be my God," carries in it the avowal of a hope of eternal union. It is safe to say that no hope is so universal, so inextinguishable, so confident. Its disappointment would shroud eternity with darkness, and cover its ages with woe. There is no fact in human experience, no attribute of human nature, no quality of Godhead, no circumstance in the divine administration, DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 2\J which warrants doubt. Every principle must be revo- lutionized, the future must be a total contradiction of the past, old precedents and analogies must all fail, all things must radically change, death must obliterate all memories and affections and ideas and laws, or the awakening in the next world will be amid the welcomes and loves and raptures of those who left us with tearful farewells, and with dying promises that they would wait to welcome us when we should arrive. And so they do Not sorrowfully, not anxiously, but lovingly, they wait to bid us welcome. We claim in the course of these discussions that we have made to appear, upon good and sufficient evidence, the following points : — i. That the relationships which exist among men in this life are not continued in the next. 2. That the peculiar loves which cement such rela- tionships are not permanent. 3. That souls in the next life have a full and thorough recollection of this life. 4. That souls in the next life dwell in one place, and have communion. 5. That souls in the next life recognize those known in this life, with a perfect remembrance of their former acquaintance and friendships. These points, we think, are clearly established as en- titled to rational faith. They cannot be matters of ab- solute knowledge. The proof, in the nature of the case, can do no more than produce a contentful faith. This it unquestionably does. We may restfully believe. There is. absolutely nothing to allege against the doctrine; 28 * 2l8 BFYOND THE GRAVE. nothing to authorize doubt. There are good reasons for it; every thing to warrant faith. It is rational to accept it. It is a case in which our affections will insist on a conclusion. In matters where knowledge is im- possible, we must be content with faith. It is wisdom to accept the consolations it offers, and to take them in their fullness ; not questioningly, not with the chill and palsy of distrust. Rational faith is next to absolute knowledge, only less assuring. It has foundation. It lays hold on truth. What it sees, though invisible to sense, is nevertheless real; as real as if we could touch and handle it. What, then, is this truth which we believe ? The dead live. In the years gone we had them with us ; they became very dear to us. They separated from the throng, and gave us their love. They grew into our be- ing, and were a part of us. One day they became weary and sick. We thought nothing of it at first; but morn- ing after morning came and they were more faint. The story of the dark days that followed is too sad. One dreary night, with radiant face, they kissed us and said good-bye. They were dead. Kind neighbors came and carried them out of our homes, and we followed with dumb awe, and saw them lay them down gently beneath the earth. We returned to the vacant house, which never could be home again. Our hearts were broken. The earth and sky have been so dark since that day. We have searched through the long nights and desolate days for them, but we cannot find them; they do not come back. We listen, but we get no tid- ings. Neither form nor voice comes to us. The dark, DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 2\g silent immensity has swallowed them up. Are they ex- tinct? No. They live; we cannot tell where, whether near us or remote ; we cannot tell in what form ; but they live. They are essentially the same beings they were when they went in and out among us. There has been no break in their life. It is as if they had crossed the sea. The old memories and old loves still are with them. New friends do not displace old ones. They are more beautiful than when we knew them, and purer and holier and happier. They are not sick or weary now. They have no sorrow. They are not alone. They have joined others. They think and talk of us. They make affectionate inquiries for our welfare. They wait for us. They are learning great lessons, which they mean to recite to us some day. They are not lonely; they are a glorious company. They have no envies or jealousies. They are ravished with the hap- piness of their new life. I do not know where it is, or how it is ; but I am certain it is so. They are kings and priests unto God. They wear crowns that flash in the everlasting light. They wear robes that are spot- lessly white. They wave victorious palms. They sing anthems of such exceeding sweetness as no earthly choirs ever approach. They stand before the throne. They fly on ministries of love. They muse on the tops of Mount Zion. They meditate on the banks of the river of life. They are rapturous with ecstasies of love. God wipes away all tears from their faces ; and there is no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain ; for the former things are passed away. The glorious angels are their teachers and companions. But 220 BEYOND THE GRAVE. why attempt to describe their ineffable state ? It hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive it. Soon we shall know it all. A day may unfold it. It will burst upon us like a revelation. We shall be speak- ing tenderly to the weeping ones about us, sorrowful ourselves to leave them, dreading to go; our faith strug- gling with terrors of doubt ; our frames shivering as our feet enter the cold river; darkness coming over us; the earth receding, disappearing alone out in the pitiless tempest ; our senses closed up, death will have com- pleted its work; eternity, heaven, opens on our eyes; our ears with sounds seraphic ring; lend, lend your wings, I mount, I fly. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ? In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole scene will change. While the weeping living are yet caressing the still warm clay, the loving watchers will be lavishing their kisses of welcome. Not as strangers approaching some lonely shore shall we depart, but as loved and longed- for pilgrims, who return to open arms and welcoming hearts. I long to see Jesus, and angels who have watched over me, and befriended me, and all of the great and good whose virtues have enriched the ages. I know I shall hasten rapturously to worship my Lord ; may be he will take me in his arms to bear me over the river, and so to him I shall pour out my great and rev- erent love ; but I am certain I shall see crowding down nearest the shore some forms that will give me their first caresses ; forms that will be more to me than all the jew- eled host that circle the eternal throne. Heaven will recognize their right. Nor will it be for a day. DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 221 The objections chiefly urged against the doctrine of recognition, as they have come under my notice, are : First, the change which passes upon the dead, destroy- ing all means of identification. This has been suffi- ciently noticed already. Second, that saints will be so absorbed in the contemplation of the divine glory, and in acts of worship, that they will have no time nor in- clination for society and communion among themselves. My answer to this is : It is a mere imagination, unwar- ranted in the Scriptures, therefore entitled to no weight; and in obvious violation of all the laws and purposes of our existence, therefore, to be rejected. The idea of heavenly life which it implies is absurd and irrational, a vain and idle dream. All analogies and all the laws of intelligent existence are against it. It is unsuited to the nature and cravings of the human soul. It is a sickly dream, which has in it nothing attractive, except to a class of mystics, who would spend eternity in rapt contemplation. The glory of God will doubtless be the all-engrossing subject ; but it will be contemplated and enjoyed in the light of what he has wrought for his re- deemed children, and as it is seen in the happiness and glory of his unsinning sons. The love that pours itself forth in adoration and worship, that makes him the cen- tral object, the fairest among ten thousand and alto- gether lovely, will kindle its fervors by seeing in him the source of all other holy loves. A chief part of his glory will be revealed in their fellowships. The love they bear each other will be his highest crown ; their mu- tual ministries in all holy pursuits his greatest delight. Their heaven will consist in their ever-growing knowl- 222 BEYOND THE GRAVE. edge of the greatness of their Author, as seen in his magnificent works, or of his plan as it shall continue to unfold before them, and in the high activities in which their love for each other and their adoring devotion to him shall find expression. They are, and must forever be, finite ; and while they worship the Infinite with rap- turous delight, they must derive most of their joy, and put forth most of their activity, in the fellowship of the finite. Their duties and pleasures will be, then as now, to beings and from beings whom they can serve, and by whom they can be served. The idea of heaven which resolves it into a mere ecstasy is degrading to men and discreditable to God, and in contradiction of all that we can see of his plan. Nothing is more obvious than that his plan contemplates the development of grand, robust spirits, who shall have their highest happiness in mag- nificent growth and achievement; spirits that shall be helpful and be helped ; spirits that shall minister and gratefully receive ministries; that shall grow together in mutual experiences ; that shall become cemented in the grandest friendships; that shall thrill with the ho- liest loves ; that progress together along the immortal ages and over infinite ranges of study, growing more and more dear as they advance in greatness and power : their knowledge of each other's history, the common ideas and common experiences, furnishing their noblest pleasures. To suppose otherwise is simply a silly dream, unfounded alike in reason and revelation, and without the force which calls for serious refutation. Third. It is objected, that if saints are recognized, and dearest friends should not be found among them, and DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 223 «?o should be known, or even supposed, to be lost, it would spread a gloom over heaven. My answer is : The objection, viewed from our present stand-point, is confessedly grave and serious. Many answers have been made to it. I have never found one to satisfy my own mind. I leave the difficulty to be relieved when things, incomprehensible now, will be made plain. It embarrasses the subject, but is only of the nature of a difficulty, and not an overthrow. These two things remain certain : Saints will know and remember each other ; saints will be perfectly happy. How they will be so, if they should miss dear ones from their circle, I do not know. I am willing to leave it where it is, wait- ing for the end to reveal it. These are the only objec- tions I now think of. To my own mind, they bear noth- ing against our positions. From the general scope of the discussion, we are pre- pared to advance the following speculations as probably true in the main, if not in every particular : — 1. There is probably much more resemblance between the present and future state than is generally supposed. The difference in some respects must necessarily be great ; in others more important, it may be, only as they differ between childhood and manhood, or the different stages and spheres of the present life. All that kind of desire and effort which springs from bodily wants will disappear, and this will be a wonderful change. Phys- ical appetite of every variety, which produces so much disquietude, and which, to so large an extent, deter- mines the structure of society here, and stimulates the pursuits of this life, will disappear. Temptation, moral 224 BEYOND THE GRAVE. struggle, doubt, sin, pain, sickness, death, and all the tendencies and methods which spring from them, will disappear. What pertains to family, Church, and civil governments : methods and machinery of education ; in- dustries, commerce, and all such activities as grow out of this earthly state, will pass away. They were of the waste-work, scaffolding in the building, and there will be no further use for them. But all that is of permanent worth will remain — personality, intellect, emotion, will, the real manhood, with all of endeavor, enjoyment, and fellowship that pertain to such a life in its unembar- rassed and endless development. What disappears is the tear, friction, alloy, rust ; what remains is the gold, the pure and permanent. 2. The soul wakes up in the future world, or passes into it, as it passes from one city to another, with as little interruption of its faculties. In its transfer, how- ever, it loses the services of the physical senses. They have finished their function, and disappear. How this affects its relation to material affairs we do not know; possibly it interrupts commerce with this life entirely; and on many accounts it may be desirable that it should : but if there is the loss of the gross physical sense, we may infer there is the acquisition of a higher order of sensorium, by which it becomes related to the spiritual realm. 3. The former friends it meets when it enters the new society, though wonderfully changed, it knows as readily, and embraces as cordially, as those we meet when, after a few days' journey, we return to our homes. 4. It is not probable that the soul, on entering the DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 225 future world, will recognize or know any others except those known before, until acquaintance by some means is formed. The imagination that disembodiment be- comes the means of knowing, without acquiring infor- mation by some process, is without warrant and irra- tional. In the next world we have reason to suppose that our faculties will be greatly strengthened and im- pediments will be less; but knowledge will not be by intuition. The soul will still be finite, and its joy in a great part will continue to arise from gradual unfolding of its powers, and enlargement of its knowledge. The zest of new ideas and fresh discoveries will in part make its heaven. Let us believe it will have its favorites. 5. It is probable that as we, when we find ourselves in a strange city, incline to seek out some friend whom we may have known before ; so when we enter the heav- enly world we will naturally seek out and consort with those known and loved before. Is it a fancy ? Admit it. Is it not natural and probable ? It will be so, or not. Can we imagine the possibility of opposite ? 6. It is probable that special friendship, commenced on earth, will be continued and carried on in heaven, and through eternity. As by a natural law we incline to the society of friends, not strangers, our intimate cir- cles there will be probably commenced here ; while by another law, that of affinity and sympathy from similar- ity of tastes, and such like, new intimacies may take the place of old ones. That souls do have their character- istic tastes now is certainly true; why not forever? Affinities result from correspondence of ideas and pur- suits. Why may they not find play in the eternal realm ? 29 226 BEYOND THE GRAVE. The field of truth is infinite ; finite faculties will be for- ever growing. Who dares say that classified tastes and attainments may not be ground of special affiliations hereafter as now, and all heaven be gained ? 7. While pure love and sincere affection will bind all heavenly beings as one family, no jars, jealousies, or discords ever disturbing the blessed union ; no affec- tions ever being injured or growing cold ; still there will be special intimacies, closer and more special friendships. Some will probably not know each other, having lived in different ages, and never spoken to- gether; others will be on speaking terms, exchanging occasional salutations ; while some again will be the close companions of centuries and ages. Who can number the millions that will live in heaven ? Who can measure the distance in degrees of power and rank between the foremost sons of light and the just admitted sons? Will they not have graded employments? Will they not come into special intimacies? Finally. The whole order and society of heaven will be adjusted for the social comfort and complete devel- opment of all the glorified spirits who shall compose it. Whatever separates will be taken down and abolished forever, and perfect love and friendship reign to all eter- nity. Blessed state ! Let us not doubt that in measure more than we can conceive, and an order of felicity great- er than we can imagine, all glorified souls will forever progress along the enlarging and ascending experiences of immortal life. All that was useless in acquirement in their inferior earthly life, or only useful for the earth, will perish with the earthly ; all needless and false learn- DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 227 ings ; all imperfect and unworthy ideas and affections ; all that were arrangements for physical production and growth and discipline ; all impediments and hinder- ances : and those things only will be retained that en- noble and aggrandize our existence. Unalloyed life will remain — the life of perfect love ; the life of ceaseless acquisition of knowledge ; the life of joyous and happy freedom in noble activities ; the life of useful and help- ful ministries ; the life of fellowship with God — eternal life. As we look up into those glorious culminations, how grand life becomes ! To be forever with the Lord, and forever changing into his likeness, and, still more, forever deepening in the companionship of his thought and bliss, "from glory to glory," — could we desire more ? The discussion has its practical uses. It comes to us fraught with comforts concerning those who have gone out from us. Whatever our sorrow, would we, were it possible, call them back ? It furnishes us hope amid our bereavements, and against our fears. We shall not always sorrow. " Now for a season, if needs be," we must walk in the dark; must spend our nights in weeping ; but it is only for a little. Soon the everlasting day will welcome us, and our sorrowing will be turned into rejoicing. Then, tears no more forever. The discus ion also teaches us the greatness of the future, and urges its paramount claims. How can we be charmed any more with the earth? How can we resist the attraction of the blessed heaven ? This time — a day, a moment — what has it for us, that we should 228 BEYOND THE GRAVE. cling to it, love it. The immortal home, the blessed ones awaiting us, the spirits of just men made perfect, the endless good in store, will they not draw us with irresistible attraction ? These views clothe our friendships with a new charm, and enrich them with an eternal value. Blessed loves ! how happy they have made us on the earth ; what will they be when they have deepened through ages, with no alloy of envy, or suspicion, or selfishness, or sorrow ! Who, as he stands here and looks into that blessed state, feels not arising within him the yearning to de- part? Multitudes stand waiting to receive us, expect- ing our arrival. With open arms they will embrace us, and with blessed welcomes attend us to our prepared homes. Let us not disappoint them ; but be up and pressing on, until the battle of life is fought and the vic- tory won, and we ascend to join them ! APPENDIX Note A. " The process of solution presents the simplest exem- plification of the power of chemical affinity. The only- condition requisite to effect solution is, that the solvent should possess a sufficient degree of affinity to the sub- stance to be dissolved, to overcome the attraction of cohesion among its particles. In some instances, the attractive power of the solvent liquid is so weak that it cannot act upon the body to be dissolved until the at- traction of cohesion, existing between the particles of the latter, is diminished, by reducing it to an impalpable powder. Even in this case, however, it is requisite that the chemical affinity subsisting between the solvent and the body to be dissolved be sufficiently powerful to over- come the cohesive attraction of the minute particles of the powder, or no solution would take place ; and this condition is indispensably necessary to solution, what- ever be the nature of the solvent or of the body acted upon. " The phenomena of solution afford some of the most obvious illustrations of complete changes produced in bodies without causing their destruction ; yet we are so much accustomed to see these changes, that though the substances dissolved can no longer be recognized, and 230 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. are rendered perfectly invisible in their new condition, we never for a moment suppose that any particle of them is lost. " The solution of a lump of sugar in a cup of tea may be adduced as a familiar illustration. The hard crystal- lized sugar is dropped into the tea, and after a short in- terval it wholly disappears. Were a person to witness such a phenomenon for the first time, he would consider the sugar totally lost, and he might be disposed to at- tribute its disappearance to magic. We are, however, so well acquainted with the process, that we cease to regard the phenomenon as worthy of notice, and feel confident that the sugar has lost none of its properties by the chemical action which renders it imperceptible to the organs of sight and touch. If the lump of sugar be dissolved in a glass of water, we may perceive the solid crystallized mass gradually disappear until no vis- ible indication of its existence remains, and the water will then appear as limpid as at first. The presence of the sugar may, however, be detected, not only by the taste, but by the weight of the water, which will be found to have increased in exact proportion to the weight of the sugar dissolved. The saccharine matter may, indeed, be reproduced in a solid form by evapor- ating the solution to dryness, when the residue will con- sist of crystals of sugar, which will be found to weigh exactly the same as the original lump. The sugar in this case is not, indeed, reproduced in the identical form that it previously possessed, but it is in all respects, with the exception of the arrangement of its particles, the same as before solution ; and the resemblance might be BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 23 1 made more close by conducting the process of evapora- tion in a vessel that would bring the crystals as they form into contact, by which means they would compose a solid lump. "The foregoing is an illustration of one of the most simple changes produced in the constitution of bodies by chemical action. In consequence of the frequent recurrence of the process it fails to make any impres- sion on the mind, and we may be disposed to wonder that it should excite observation. Yet the change the sugar undergoes is so great, and it is in appearance so completely destroyed, that if we had no means of de- tecting its presence in the water we might imagine that solution was identical with annihilation. " We will adduce another and less familiar instance of the total disappearance of a solid body by solution. If a piece of silver be immersed in diluted nitric acid, the affinity of the acid to the metal will occasion them to unite ; a brisk action will ensue, and in a short time the silver will be entirely dissolved. The liquid will remain as limpid as before, and will present no difference in its appearance to indicate a change. What, then, has be- come of the solid piece of silver that was placed in the liquid ? Its hardness, its luster, its tenacity, its great specific gravity, all the characteristics that distinguished it as a metal, are gone; its very form has vanished, and the hard, splendid, ponderous, and opaque metal that, but a few minutes since was immersed in the mixture, is apparently annihilated. Must we conclude that the metal is destroyed, because its presence is inappreciable by our senses ? We might, perhaps, be disposed to ar- 232 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. rive at such a conclusion if we were unacquainted with the means of restoring the silver to its metallic state, or were ignorant of any test that might indicate its pres- ence in the fluid, or were unable from analogous phe- nomena to infer that its elementary particles exist un- changed, and have merely undergone a different state of combination. Chemical science, however, not only af- fords us innumerable analogical proofs that the metal is not destroyed, but enables us to reproduce it from the solution, undiminished in weight, and possessing the luster and other properties by which it was previously distinguished, and thus to place the question of its being suspended in the liquid beyond the possibility of a doubt. The reproduction of the silver may be effected by intro- ducing some pieces of copper into the solution, to which metal the acid has a stronger affinity than to the silver, and the latter will consequently be disengaged and fall to the bottom in small, brilliant, metallic crystals. The quantity thus deposited will be found to correspond ex- actly with the weight of the metal dissolved ; and, if the minute particles be melted and cast into the same shape that the piece of silver presented before solution, it will be reproduced, not only the same in substance, and en- dued with the same properties it possessed before its disappearance in the acid, but even in its pristine form. " It would be of little avail to multiply illustrations of the phenomena of solution for the purpose of showing that this process does not destroy the particles of mat- ter. The two instances already adduced will sufficiently answer our purpose, though they constitute two only out BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 233 of the innumerable examples that might be produced in proof of the same indisputable fact. "Before we dismiss this branch of our subject, how- ever, it may be as well to direct attention to the fact that though solution is one of the simplest processes of nature, the limited faculties of man will not permit him to comprehend the mode in which it operates. We are enabled to discover the proximate cause of the process, and to ascertain that the action of the solvent upon the body to be dissolved is produced by the chemical at- tractions subsisting between their elementary atoms ; but of the nature of that attraction, and of the manner in which it acts, we are profoundly ignorant. In the more intricate phenomena investigated by the chemist, even the proximate causes of their action can only be conjectured ; still less can he discover the ultimate modes of operation by which their processes are con- ducted. There is not one phenomenon of nature that the mind of man can fully comprehend; and, after pur- suing the inquiry as far as his mental capacity will ad- mit, he is still obliged to confess that there is an oper- ating power beyond the reach of his comprehension. It is of importance in our researches that we should bear in mind the utter incapacity of man to penetrate the hidden mysteries of nature, lest we be induced to mistake the low level of human knowledge for the sum- mit of omniscience, and should run into the common error of concluding that whatever is incomprehensible to our limited faculties must be impossible." Blakie, from whom this extract is taken, furnishes equally striking examples, under evaporation, rarefac- 30 234 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. tion, natural decomposition, and combustion. To quote them would make this note too long, and yet the matter is so important to the argument that I will extend the quo- tation so as to embrace his general summation : — " When we infer that the results of the solution of one lump of sugar are the same as those attending all other solutions of sugar in the same solvent, under similar circumstances, we proceed upon the clearest evidence it is possible to obtain — that of experience. If we were not acquainted with the results attending the solution of any other substance than sugar, we might, perhaps, infer — from analogy — as no particle of sugar when dissolved is lost by the process, that in all solutions the substance dissolved is not destroyed, but is only suspended in the solvent. The analogy in this case, however, if unsup- ported, could not be alone adduced as evidence of this general effect of solution. If, however, we found, after analyzing the products of three or four other solutions, that the same results occurred, the inference drawn from the analogy would assume a character of great proba- bility. When, on further investigation, we found that during every solution winch we are enabled to analyze the particles of matter in the body dissolved have merely entered into different combinations, and are not de- stroyed, or even changed in their properties, the general conclusion deduced from these facts, namely, that mat- ter is never destroyed or altered by any kind of solution, acquires a degree of certainty little short of that drawn from direct experience. " Having thus acquired a satisfactory knowledge of the fact that matter is not destroyed by solution, we might BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 2$$ proceed to infer that, as in this apparently destructive chemical action the elements of matter only undergo a new combination, therefore in all other chemical actions the elementary particles of matter are merely combined in different forms, and are not destroyed. This analog- ical inference might be drawn from the process of solu- tion alone, but it would be too general a deduction from one species of chemical action to be confidently relied on. When, however, we perceive, on examining the re- sults of other chemical processes, that even the most apparently destructive of them are really inoperative to effect the least diminution in the particles of matter, we should be warranted, by this accumulated experience bearing upon the point, in concluding that such an in- ference is correct. When, for instance, it is ascertained that in every known form of solution, of evaporation, of rarefaction, of decomposition, and even of combustion, the elements of matter are not changed or diminished: that no particle of the matter acted on suffers annihila- tion, and that by no known process whatever can matter be destroyed, this accumulated evidence, derived from experience, gives so strong a corroboration to the anal- ogy, that the proof of the indestructibility of all matter becomes almost as well established as any truth can be, of which we have not absolute demonstration. " The same important truth may be arrived at in an- other manner. It is known that all chemical actions we are acquainted with are merely the results of differ- ent states of chemical affinity, and that the decomposi- tion and separation of the elements of bodies are effected only by the formation of new combinations. The proc- 236 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. esses of chemistry, therefore, which we are in the habit of considering as agents in the destruction of bodies, are but the passive effects of the operation of chemical attraction, which has caused the particles of matter to combine either with different substances or with differ- ent proportions of the same. "Taking this view of the subject, then, it will be seen that the several processes selected for illustration in the preceding chapters, as exhibiting the most striking in- stances of the apparent destruction of matter, are only- subsequent effects induced by the operation of chemical attraction. The phenomena of solution are the results of the affinity subsisting between the liquid and the sub- stance dissolved; evaporation is the effect of similar at- tractions between the liquid evaporated and the atmos- phere; rarefaction, of that subsisting between the rarefied body and heat ; decomposition is the effect of various chemical affinities which separate the parts of bodies from their original compounds to form others of a dif- ferent kind ; and even combustion has been shown, in the preceding chapters, to be only the result of similar affinities exerted energetically between the elements of the combustible bodies and the supporters of combus- tion. If, then, experience teaches that the operations usually considered the most destructive do not, in fact, destroy one particle of matter — and if we learn, also, that those operations themselves are nothing more than the effects of new combinations, and are entirely dependent upon the operation of these combinations — we receive additional evidence of the most conclusive nature to confirm the former deductions from analogy. We thus BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 237 perceive that it would be impossible for those processes which appear to change the forms of bodies to destroy the ultimate particles of matter, because the processes themselves are only effects consequent on the changes that have already taken place, and merely indicate that the new combinations have been completed. "We are not acquainted with any physical process or operation of nature that can annihilate matter. Expe- rience teaches us that matter is imperishable, and we cannot form the least conception of the possibility of its annihilation. We are bound, then, to believe, from an accumulation of evidence so strong as to be completely irresistible, that the elements of matter which have once been created can only be annihilated by the direct in- terposition of the Omnipotent Power that brought them into being. Having thus arrived, by different modes of reasoning, at the important truth that all matter is inde- structible excepting by the direct interposition of the Power that created it, the next consideration is the ap- plication of this truth, to prove the imperishable nature of the sentient principle in man. " In this branch of our inquiry we cannot, owing to the limited extent of our faculties, and our complete igno- rance of the condition of the mind after death, be aided by direct experience. Our faculties are, indeed, com- pletely baffled when we attempt to investigate the sub- ject ; and, as it seems impossible for us to attain a knowl- edge of the nature and properties of our own mind, even when we are acting under its impulse, we can have but little expectation of ascertaining the nature of the minds of others; and as the sentient principle is so extremely 238 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. subtile as to evade all attempts to investigate its nature when united with the corporeal substance which it ani- mates and renders capable of performing the functions of vitality, we can scarcely hope to be able to penetrate the mystery of its being when it is separated from the body, and no perceptible trace of its existence remains. Being deprived, then, by our incapacity to comprehend so subtile an essence, from gaining any positive evidence relative to the nature of the human mind, or from being able to assist our inquiries respecting its existence in a separate state from the body by the results of experi- ence, we are obliged to have recourse to the next best evidence we can obtain, which is that of analogy. If, however, the analogical evidence be strengthened by a number of facts derived from experience, tending, by their separate corroborative testimonies to confirm the belief of a future existence of the sentient being, the effect of this combined evidence bearing upon the point will be nearly as conclusive as that of direct proof. It will bear, in short, the same relation in the investigation of truth that circumstantial evidence bears to that of positive testimony; the latter is more direct, but cir- cumstantial evidence may not be less satisfactory. "In the progress of our inquiries we trust we shall be able to present a mass of evidence of this description, tending to support in the strongest manner the position which it is our object to establish. One important link in this chain of evidence is the truth arrived at in the foregoing investigations. Indeed, we might, as has been already observed, infer with the greatest probability of correctness from that truth alone, that the soul is inde- BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 239 structible. For if matter, which is continually under- going apparent and most striking changes, be imperish- able, we cannot reasonably suppose that the mind, which controls all the actions of matter with which it is incor- porated, is of a more perishable nature than the grosser particles that are subservient to its will. The numerous instances, also, with which we are acquainted, of the continued existence of matter in a more subtile form, and therefore inappreciable by our senses, after it has apparently been annihilated, afford strong emblematical analogy to the existence of the soul after its separation from the body. " We can scarcely conceive a greater change than that which takes place on the decomposition of water, and the conversion of its tasteless and salubrious liquid par- ticles into an inflammable, invisible, and noxious gas, and into a solid body combined with iron. No anni- hilation could appear to be more complete than that of the water in this process to those who are ignorant of the nature of the phenomenon ; and yet, when that is known, it affords one of the strongest proofs of the inde- structibility of matter. The changes that occur on death are not greater, nor do they present a more decided ap- pearance of annihilation, than does the decomposition of water. The decomposition of animal bodies, indeed, ex- hibits not only the destruction of the system of organ- ization, but of the matter organized; nevertheless not one particle is lost throughout the complicated process; and if we were capable of investigating the mental proc- esses consequent on the dissolution of the body, we can scarcely doubt that the sentient principle would be 240 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. found to be as imperishable and unchangeable as the matter with which it was united. " Our dense faculties will not enable us to comprehend the nature of immaterial being; and even tho'e material substances that assume a subtile form surpass the bounds of our comprehension. The power of gravitation, for instance, is supposed to be caused by a material agent, but of its nature or modes of operation we are totally- ignorant. We know, however, that it exists, and that it has continued since the creation of the world to exert the same influence over grosser matter in all its combi- nations, decays, and apparent dissolutions. We have a firm conviction that the power of gravity is of equal, if not of superior, duration to the matter which it con- trols ; and we know that its force is not diminished by the complete decomposition of the substances on which it operates. The same observations would apply to heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical attraction, of the nature of which we know nothing, though of their existence we have continued proof. When we combine these facts relative to the indestructibility of matter, and when we consider our incompetency to investigate immaterial essences, we shall have strong grounds for believing that mind is as imperishable as material sub- stance, and we shall see the futility of those objections raised to the separate existence of the soul, merely on the ground of such a state of separation being incom- prehensible. When, for instance, we perceive that mat- ter cannot be destroyed — that the more subtile proper- ties of matter exercise their power over the grosser particles, undisturbed by the changes and separations BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 2\\ among the particles themselves — that these changes and separations seem fully as great, and are as incompre- hensible to those not initiated into the mysteries of science, as the supposed separate existence of the soul from the body must, from the incapacity of the human intellect, be to the wisest of mankind — when we perceive that this incapacity alone prevents our arriving at the same truth respecting the sentient principle which we have attained respecting the indestructibility of material substances — we are led, by a powerful combination of the clearest analogies, to the conclusion that the sen- tient principle is as imperishable as the apparently frail substance in which it is enveloped; and this deduction from analogical evidence derives strong confirmation from the fact that in all cases wherein we are enabled to pursue the inquiry to a satisfactory termination, the results are the same as those we infer to be the case with the mind, which we cannot analyze. If, therefore, we possessed no other natural evidence in support of a belief in a future life, the analogical argument founded upon the indestructibility of matter has been forcibly expressed by an able writer in the following words : — "'We have the evidence of experience that nothing is ever suffered to perish but particular systems, which perish only as systems, by a decomposition of their parts. A being which, like the soul, has no par% can suffer no decomposition, and, therefore, if it perish, it must perish by annihilation. But of annihilation there has not hith- erto been a single instance, nor can we look for a single instance without supposing the volitions of God to par- take of that unsteadiness which is characteristic of man / 242 BEY OX D THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. Corporeal systems, when they have served their purpose, are, indeed, resolved into their component parts; but the matter of which they are composed, so far from being lost, becomes the matter of other systems in end- less succession. Analogy, therefore, leads us to con- clude that when the human body is dissolved the im- material principle by which it was animated continues to think and act, either in a state of separation from all body, or in some material vehicle to which it is ulti- mately united, and which goes off with it at death, or else that it is preserved by the Father of spirits for the purpose of animating a body in some future state. When we consider the different states through which that living and thinking individual which each man calls himself goes, from the moment it first animates an embryo in the womb to the dissolution of the man of fourscore — and when we reflect likewise on the wisdom and immu- tability of God, together with the various dissolutions of corporeal systems, in which we know that a single atom of matter has never been lost — the presumption is cer- tainly strong that the soul shall subsist after the disso- lution of the body. But when we take into considera- tion the moral attributes of God, his justice and goodness, together with the unequal distribution of happiness and misery in the present world, this presumption from anal- ogy amounts to a complete moral proof that :here will be a future state of rewards and punishments.' " The natural evidence of a future life does not, how- ever, rest upon the indestructibility of matter alone. That forms only one link, though an important one, in the chain." BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 243 Note B. Man was made for permanence of life ; but in this state- ment we do not mean either that his animal life, as such, in its present form, was to be permanent, or that he was to remain forever in a body on the earth. We do not believe either of these ideas true. We are free to confess that we can see nothing in the nature of man to exempt him from the common law of death, so far forth as he is ani- mal. Further, we are constrained to believe, that, left to the mere working of natural law, he would have died. He most certainly included in his created constitution tendencies to death, which, imhindered, would have cul- minated in that result. The same causes that work dissolution in other creatures were active in his nature. The same hostile forces which are universally destruc- tive of other lives were militant against his life, and guaranteed its ultimate overthrow, unless in some way prevented. The physiology of his life, as in every other case, exhibits a constant lapse into death, an uninter- mittent tendency to the goal of extinction. As to his organic life he was naturally mortal ; and yet we accept the idea that, had he not sinned, he would not have died ; the naturally mortal, as to his organic life, would have been, by special supernatural interference, made immortal. The disorganizing tendencies would not have been permitted to reach the catastrophe of life's ovei- throw and organic dissolution. The immunity was not of nature, but of grace. This we understand to be the revealed doctrine, in which exemption is set forth as the reward of obedience. 244 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. "The tree of life " was a sacramental seal to the cove- nant of life in which he stood, a perpetual and visible guarantee of life on definitive conditions. Sin was the proclaimed ground of annulling the covenant, which, on its occurrence, would simply remove from the guilty cul- prit the covenanted supernatural protection, and leave him to lapse into death : the destructive agencies cor- porate in his nature, no longer restrained, would, in that event, be left to prey upon and vanquish his forfeited life. If this view be correct, by sin man becomes sub- ject to the common fate of all flesh, from which, by obedience, he would have been graciously exempted. No one can doubt that the Infinite, in the inexhaustible fecundity of his resources, might have, in the case of man, provided an exception against a general rule. There is abundant reason to suppose that he would and did. The exceptional nature of man taken into the ac- count, the scriptural theory is neither impossible nor improbable. It does not preclude the fact of the nat- ural tendencies to death, which cannot be questioned, and is not, therefore, in conflict with manifest fact. It introduces an exceptional counterworking force, which, for a sufficient reason, on a certain contingency, was to avert the natural catastrophe. Those who resolutely discard all lights except such as are furnished by mere nature may discard the theory. We accept it on the ground that we have another set of facts, not in contra- diction of those furnished by nature, but additional to them — a communicated revelation from the Creator himself, in which he declared his purpose that the ca- tastrophe foreshadowed by nature should, in this case, BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 245 for reasons, be averted. Our disagreement is not as to the facts of observation, but as to the supplemental facts. So far as observation goes we agree ; revelation denies, contradicts, nothing, but only adds. There is no con- flict; but one brings into the field an object-glass which the other discards. But assuming the revealed theory to be true, that is, "that had not man sinned he would not have died," some interesting questions remain, as to what his des- tiny in that case would have been. The discussion may remove some widespread theological crudities, and at the same time suggest some useful hints on the subject of the immortal life. Does the theory we have stated imply that the undy- ing because unsinning man would have forever remained an inhabitant of the earth? By no means. Does it imply that he would have remained forever in the body in which he was created and as created ? By no means. Many who hold the theory undoubtedly would answer both questions affirmatively. They see in the deathless Adam and his deathless race nothing other than the earthly made permanent and immortal. The inference is both illogical and unscriptural, and, for many positive reasons, must be rejected. In the absence of any express statement of revelation on the subject, it is hardly surprising that the unpre- meditated inference has been almost universally in the affirmative. A more careful and extended study is cer- tain to lead to another view. The absence of express dogmatic statement does not imply the absence of def- inite teaching. Many times it occurs that most impor- 246 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. tant doctrines are taught by implication, and not less definitely than if expressly enunciated. This is a con- spicuous case of the kind. The whole burden and drift of revelation is obvious and explicit, though not categorical. But had revelation been totally silent on t .4 subject, obstinate facts would necessitate the belief that immor- tality in bodies such as ours, and under laws such as those which are inherent in our nature, is an impossible thing. The human law of fecundation, as we have seen, would in a comparatively brief time have overstocked the world with population, to what an extent you have only to refresh your minds by referring to page 265 to discover. It is so obvious that the body as now organized was not made for permanence, that, if the theory that death is the result of sin involves the counter idea, that ab- sence of sin would have insured absence of death, and consequent permanence of the bodily organization, the theory would have to be abandoned. We can scarcely conceive of an authority that could have rendered it credible. But non-death is not the necessary equiva- lent of permanence of the present organism. It might be transformed; or from it might be evolved a higher and more perfect organization, without the process of corruption, or the humiliation and agonies of death. How the change might have been effected is to us un- known ; but not more so than the fact of life. That it would have been effected, though not discovera- ble by unaided reason, is certainly not unreasonable, while it is certainly scriptural. Mere sense points to BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX, 247 inevitable death ; revelation indicates transformations. But reason itself affirms that if immortality is the dower of man, it must be in an organism and under conditions totally different from those now existing. Man's ultimate destiny, as purposed by the Creator from the first, must be interpreted, if we are left to mere reason, from his higher nature — that which makes him man — not from his lower, that which he has in common with other creatures. Guided by this principle, the re- sult of examination will be the discovery of a probable deliverance from the present bodily organization at some time and in some way. His real self is spirit, not body. Every thing else about him has value and meaning, and exists, and may be expected to remain, only as it is nec- essary, and while it is necessary, to the full development and highest good of this noblest self. If at any time the man should reach a stage of growth where his earlier bodily conditions and surroundings would become a clog to him, impede his further perfection, hinder, not help it, or merely cease to answer any important end, we might, according to all analogies, expect them to disappear. The scaffolding which is necessary to the building while it is in process of erection becomes a deformity and embarrassing surplusage after it is com- pleted. The egg which nourishes and protects the young bird while it is preparing for its life of freedom in the outer air, would smother and destroy it were it continued but a little too long. The expanding germ could not long live if repressed in its development. In the case of man there is abundant evidence that he does in an incredibly brief period grow beyond his present 248 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. appointments ; and still more abundant evidence that in their nature they prevent his reaching the ultimate goal of his life. The organism, the animal, in which the man, the spirit — the true and only self — comes swathed, answers the double purpose already indicated for a time, but it soon becomes an incumbrance ; from being a useful servant it becomes a burdensome charge. It helps the spirit to its first lessons, and leads it out into its first activities; but it embarrasses its advanced stages of growth, and ob- structs its higher exercises. It proves not only an in- sufficient instrument, out of measure for our needs, but it has needs which are wearisome and expensive; wants growing out of its infirmities and weaknesses, needs of care and repairs, which are throughout life, and espe- cially in advanced age, a constant and distressing strain on powers and affections which have higher uses, and which demand freedom and enlargement into other realms and modes of employment. During early stages, when beginning to unfold, man may find useful and even happy employment in working with his hands for food; in taxing his brain to invent curious fabrics for clothing and adornment; in architecture, in construct- ing machinery, in executing coarse arts, in various han- dicrafts, and in all that multifarious labor which makes up the substance of most lives ; but to a soul coming to its nobler and deeper wants and possibilities and unap- peasable cravings — that superior consciousness which sooner or later visits all — such things must cloy. There is nothing that pertains to a body, either its necessities or pleasures, that would be agreeable to carry up through BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 249 eternity ; as a stomach forever craving, limbs forever wearying, tissues forever wasting, a frame forever crying for protection against pain and hurt and hunger. The care which nature demands for its comfort and well- being, and even its most exquisite sensations, ultimately weary, then disgust, while its limitations always chafe and cripple us. The soul, or self, at first at home in its life in nature, (1 Cor. xv, first that which is natural, after that, that which is spiritual,) ere long discovers that its real home is above the stars, and in utterly other condi- tions. Either its capabilities and resulting longings must be eradicated, or it must be the permanent victim of unappeasable aspirations which can never be gratified, or it must in some way attain deliverance from physical thralldom. Nor is this fact of growing disharmony with its earthly conditions attributable to the accident of its sin, or any abnormal effects arising therefrom. Had man remained forever innocent — or, more yet, had he possessed unblemished holiness — still the earth could not long have been an adequate and felicitous home. Even the sinless spirit must have pined ere long for a bliss more celestial, for activities more ennobling, than any possible in a realm such as this in which we are born. For a limited time his unfolding energies might have been contentful, even exuberant; but its highest bliss never could have been attained ; the enshrined life never could have become the evolved life. The body :s ioo circum- scribed an instrument — too much fettered by natural law — too narrow in its possible uses — to furnish for the out- come of such a life as is contained in its possibilities; it anchors the soul in the earth, in sense and externality, 32 250 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. while it longs to explore the stars, or, going beyond them, to enter into other fellowships ; to see the invisible, to know the unknown. The divine soul, coming to its celestial longings, and consciousness of unseen and su- permundane glories, could not remain satisfied with the endless round of eating, sleeping, drudging, and the mere sensualities that make up the round of earthly ex- istence. Sin is not the only thing that makes the earth unsuited for a permanent home. It is no disparagement to nature when we say, it is not adequate to the wants of an immortal being. We do not disparage the body. It is God's most noble earthly work, but it belongs to an inferior system. For a temporary arrangement noth- ing could be more beautiful or helpful than the mani- fold arrangements about us. Nothing is in vain. All things minister. Life is carried on and up to ecstasy, but it is prophetic, and must go forward. To continue in its present plane empties it of good, constituted as we are. No greater calamity could befall us than to live forever as here and now, with the inevitable tendencies in our nature ; in fact, the idea would be revolting, if it were not impossible. If the scheme did not contain elements preventive of earthly immortality, the mani- fold evils of such an arrangement would beget a deep- er discontent than death itself, even as death is more endurable than utter longing or sullen despair. Death- less himself, man would find himself in a world of death — death every-where ravening his beautiful home, despoiling all. But, in fact, an immortal race of beings such as man — with physical organization, wants, appetites, passions, BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 25 1 and longings such as his — with procreative laws such as those by which the race is multiplied and propagat- ed — is a simple impossibility. Without a radical change in the whole order of nature it would work its own extinction. The whole drift of the evidence deducible from the system as we find it proves that the animal economy is a temporary arrangement, designed to answer a useful purpose during an inferior stage of the ever-developing and progressive life of an immortal race, and then to be abolished, and to be followed by existence of a different kind under wholly different conditions. Death entered into the very essence of the economy. The babe in the womb, the bird in the shell, the germ in the seed, are not more obvious cases of incipient and preliminary stages of life, having reference to a more advanced stage, than is the present condition of man. Indeed, all natural processes, in which progress is the law, is simply an exemplification of the same idea. Until the ultimate idea is reached, all previous stages are tran- sient. The ultimate for man, as the highest and grand- est thing possible to his nature — the culmination and completeness of his being — is spiritual perfection. Every thing preliminary thereto is temporary — mere scaffold- ing. Universal creation is to be interpreted by its spir- itual side. That only is entitled to be carried up which will serve a spiritual end, or be permanently condi- tioned to spiritual perfection. For example : inanimate and inorganic matter exists in vast masses, not for it- self or any good that is in it. Taken alone, there could be no reason assigned for its existence at all, much less 252 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. for its permanence. The same is true of the inferior organic and living orders. They furnish no adequate end for such a lavish expenditure of power. It is only as they serve higher ends that they commend them- selves. The higher thought in each case is plainly dis- cernible, and in no case is a mere conjecture. Crude earths exist for vegetation, to which all the parts of the solar economy also minister. In turn, the vegetable conditions and ministers to the animal, and in this finds its end. What is below, in every case, finds its explana- tion and the reason of it in what is built upon it. This is but the announcement of one of the simplest laws of thought. There can be no true philosophy of any thing which does not include its end, since philosophy is nothing else but the apprehension of ends, and the rela- tion and adaptation of means thereto. The study of the scheme of nature discovers the fact that man is its topmost point or climax. All below points to him, and is in order to him. This is so if we contemplate him simply as an organism. All nature labors to build the tissues of his body — sun, moon, stars, earth, and all lower forms of life are harnessed to this service. But the organism is not a finality, but is means to a higher end ; is served by all, that it may serve in the highest ministry of all; that it may shrine a spirit and initiate an immortal life. This, therefore, interprets all. First, the natural; after, that which is spiritual; then that which is celestial — all below pointing upward. The question now under consideration is, What relation do these preliminary economies sustain to this ultimate ? Are they permanently necessary to it, or may the ulti- BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 2$$ mate, at first conditioned by them, rise to independence of them, and advance along its immortal progress with- out them ? When the dome is set may the scaffolding be laid away? That at first bodies are indispensable there can be no reasonable doubt. Their deft and curious contrivances are for man's use and development. For his composite wants the whole economy of nature is set, but more especially for the education, the leading forth, of his spiritual powers ; but for this the scheme would not exist ; and when it is accomplished, special parts of the economy may be dispensed with, and new and higher parts be introduced. What are the uses which bodies serve to the higher spiritual economy ? First, they serve as material shrines in which to posit souls. There may be unbodied spirits for aught we know — spirits that never were shrined in flesh or corporeity. Not such is the human spirit. It is located in flesh — has an earthly house. By means of its body it comes into relations with the material universe, and, as we shall soon perceive, comes to be conscious of itself, and attains the development of its wondrous powers. If, afterward, it suffers much from the body, it owes much to the body. If it is true that the perfection of the spirit is the ultimate end of the whole economy of nature, it is also true that it is made dependent on the economy. The soul enters existence as a germ. It is not born in the maturity of its powers. Almost infinite possi- bilities are stored in it, but they will only be educed by tedious and determined processes. It is of the noblest essence, and possesses the divinest faculties ; is a child of God, bearing his image and likeness, and born to the 254 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. heritage of truth and love ; but it is an infant, and must grow into its patrimony. Life on earth is the primary school, where it learns its first lessons in truth, and the home circle, where it drinks its first inspirations of love ; and the body mediates its instructions and ins^ intions. When created and posited in the body, it neithei knows nor loves; is not even conscious of itself; and from all that appears, never could come even to self-conscious- ness or knowledge of any externality without its offices. It is roused by externality. The impact of material surroundings on the delicate nervous organization some- how impresses it. We call the effect sensation. Percep- tion follows — the glories of the external universe burst upon it— it knows and feels. It could never do either but for the mediatorial sensorium and the external realm to which it relates it. Thus the instrument and the external universe are seen to be indispensable to the soul, and to be created for it— the bridges over which it passes to its conscious experiences— the mediators of its lif e — the fulcra from which it rises into all the kinds and sublimities of activity which shall grow and glorify its immortal flight. So important is the instrument, so closely related to the soul's life, that it ceases to be a wonder that in our ignorance we should be betrayed, as is sometimes the case, into the error of confounding it with the soul itself. Still less is it to be wondered at, that we should fall into the error of supposing that that which is so serviceable at first must be forever in- dispensable, and so are led to imagine that the de- struction of the instrument by death must be irreparable calamity to the soul also, failing to see that what is BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 2$$ helpful in one stage of existence may be hinderance in another. It is to be noted, that the experience which the body mediates to the soul is a low and inferior type, grounded in sensation, and resulting in acquaintance with and en- joyment of, the material world — a mere life in nature. During a period the soul is shut in to externality. It cognizes only what is sensible. Its affections only lay hold of the palpable and visible. It flits about from object to object, gathering a kind of enjoyment, as bees roam from flower to flower. The eye, the ear, the touch flood it with pleasing sensations. The unison of forms and colors, and fragrance and flower, and sound and touch, ravishes it. Emotions of pleasure and delight thrill it. The nerve of sensation vibrates to the deeper spiritual nerve — the sense of the beautiful, the true, the good. Love springs, and new fountains of ecstasy are opened ; but it is all in the realm of the sensible. Perceptions, emotions, reflections, volitions — the entire circle of awakened activity — has reference to matters of sense — what lies about the soul, and reaches it through the or- ganism — a life in which the organism and spirit seem to blend. But in process of time there comes the conscious- ness of higher powers ; consciousness of an ethereal soul, which has supersensible relations ; of wants higher than animal cravings ; of a possible bliss nobler than sensual delights ; of hungerings and thirstings which no material good can satisfy. That which pleased pleases no more. To every soul, sooner or later, this new and expanded life must come. It will rise out of the sen- sible ; new aspirations, new longings, yearnings after the 256 BEYOND THE GRAVE- APPENDIX. unseen, will come to it; discoveries of previously un- known realities which will sink all its earlier and mere- ly animal and sensual delights and enjoyments and pur- suits into satiety and disgust. The earth, that once was so great, will become too narrow for it, and too gross. Beauties will come and muster before its interior eye that will make all earthly beauty fade ; the glory of sun and moon and stars dwindle before the greater glory of unseen heavens ; music will ravish its inward ear, that will make all the grosser sounds of earthly harmonies, discords ; loves will draw it deeper than all earthly sympathies; it will become an exile, a captive pining for deliverance; earth will no longer be a home for it; it will account itself a stranger and pilgrim. Its gaze will be turned upward, not to the heavens of suns and stars, but to the greater heaven where dwell other powers and potentates — the infinite empyrean of truth and love and spiritual thrones and dominions. Henceforth things earthly and material will not satisfy it. The animal, which served it well, can serve it no longer; will have accomplished its mediatorial purpose; will have led the immortal to the door of his heaven, into which it cannot go; and being no further useful, but a clog and shackle, will be left at the gate. Thus, if we rightly interpret God's plan, the material creation from top to base is mere scaffolding to the spiritual; a structure of means, by the help of which to erect an immortal spiritual empire, into which shall en- ter nothing gross or base; an empire of souls, whose heaven shall be the fellowship of God — a fellowship of love, of knowledge, of beneficent activity, of growth into BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 257 depths and heights of perfection and power, which will make them worthy objects of their Maker's love, and sharers of his bliss. The two forms of life known to be subject to death are similar, but differentiable. The same difference car- ries up into the death they suffer, both as to character and procuring causes. The first kind we have defined, vitalized material tissue, or simply force of growth, by the predetermined operation of which organisms, veg- etable and simply animal, are fashioned according to uniform and definitive types. Whether life itself in this lowest form is of the nature of spirit, we are not able to predicate. The subject of force in any of its forms is too occult for our faculties or experimentation. It seems to be resolvable into mere motion of will ultimately, and so to be manifestation of spirit, but no possible science reaches its home. And the position we take of this kind of life is, that in its nature it is perishable ; that wherever found to exist, as soon as it exists, and as an inseparable concomitant of its existence, it tends to extinction, and must inevitably, by operation of its law, reach extinc- tion, unless supernaturally perpetuated; that the death of such a life is concreated, and in no sense accidental. It not only may die, but it is its law to die. Not to die would be the miraculous removal of the law of its being. In fact, its momentary continuance is death. Death runs pari passu- with life. This appears upon the most casual observation of the action of life. As a force, its action is organifre by extending itself to unliving mat- ter, subsidizing it, incorporating it, and fashioning it into a living structure. But no accretion or expansion 38 258 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. is attained without attendant waste or surrender of the living form to death. Even the vegetable carries on its processes of growth by means of its inexplicable chem- istry, not without eliminating atomic portions of itself, and relegating them to elemental inanimation. Much more is this true of the animal. It, we know, carries forward its processes of nutrimentation, circulation, oxygenation, assimilation, and functional and voluntary activity, at constant expense and waste. " Under what- ever disguise it takes refuge, whether fungus or oak, worm or man, the living protoplasm not only ultimately dies, and is resolved into its mineral and lifeless con- stituents, but is always dying, and, strange as the para- dox may sound, could not live unless it died." — Hughy. The living tissue is incessantly lapsing into death by its own processes, so that in a short space of time not a particle of any original living structure remains living. It is asserted that to effect this entire change of cor- poreity only seven years is required. This may or may not be, but it is absolutely certain that most of the tissue is replaced. If it is true that in all these changes the life remains intact, it is no less true that that which was alive be- comes dead. But if we carry up the observation still further, we find that ultimately, in every case, when the organific force has completed its evolution, fin- ished its structure, put on the finial, becoming weary of the tense struggle with unfriendly forces, in the very moment of its victory it surrenders, and the curiously wrought work begins a process of decay more rapid than that of its previous growth, and a little on, where life was BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 259 supreme, death holds undisputed sway. There is not, and never has been, an exception to this in the realm of terrestrial life. All things that have a material life live through a cycle, it may be a minute, it may be a thousand years, and die ; die because it is their law to die; die because that for which they lived has been accomplished, and be- cause continuance of life has no adequate end. Life is a transient and transitive force. Thus it appears, from the nature of the life acting in and through matter, that death is its normal terminus ad quern. If the force is self-destructive, much more is it the inevitable prey of other hostile forces which perpetually make war upon it, which, though kept in abeyance for a time, and even made to serve its ends, finally triumph over it. The organism it elaborates with such infinite skill and delicacy of fiber is too fragile to maintain for- ever the unequal contest with the destructive forces which beleaguer it on every side. The earthquakes which rend the mountain and shift the foundations of the continents, and the storms which hurtle through the sky and devour the sea, must be fatal to it ; the still more subtle but not less deadly agents which exude from the earth and ride noiselessly on the atmosphere, must ultimately undermine and overthrow it. The scheme of nature in which it has its home is fitted up for its destruction. Nothing short of eternal miracle, set for the guardian- ship of each life, could guarantee its deathless continu- ance. When it shall succumb to its own wastes and the assaults of other unfriendly forces, is only a ques- Z60 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. tion of limited time, and a question to which the answer is not uncertain. My second argument is derived from the fact that one class of life is dependent for its subsistence on the de- struction of another class. This, if it be true, is proof direct that death as a necessity is corporate in the sys- tem of nature. That it is a fact appears in two ways most conclusively. The vegetable takes its life from unliving substance by an alchemy too subtle for our detection, a chemistry by whose mysterious manifestation death turns to life. This is not so, however, of the animal. The chemistry of nature furnishes it no direct alimentation. It must immediately perish if it have not some life upon which to subsist, or, if not life now, a compound of matter which was once living as well as product of life. The life of the animal is the necessary death of the vegetable. Nature is vicarious. No law is more primitive or fun- damental than this. But this is not all : the manner of subsidizing vegetable life by animals of several orders cannot be carried on without the destruction, also, not merely of a few, but of vast multitudes of provinces of other animal life. There is not a leaf of herbage cropped by grazing herds which was not the home of a numerous population of insect and micro- scopic life, which was destroyed in the destruction of its habitat. St. Pierre, by careful observation, proves that thousands of organized, locomotive beings inhabit a single strawberry leaf, to whom the morning dew-drop is a Noachian flood, and a single sun's rising and setting an epoch. And science, by the same careful processes BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 26 1 of observation, peoples every drop of water and minut- est portion of air with infinitesimal animal existence, which by every respiration and slaking of thirst is de- stroyed by higher animals. These are facts well known to even casual observers. Death is thus not only seen to be a part of the plan, but a necessary part of it. It may be said that this is a kind of life too insignificant to mention : true, it is a low type, but it is life, and suf- fices to prove that death is normal as life. But what is true of the inferior forms of life is true of the higher also. A slight attention to the structure and physiology of the superior races, as they are properly styled, shows that they were created for each other, one class to subsist on the nutritious tissue of the others. There is no more evidence that vegetable matter was pri- marily designed for animal food than there is that some animals were created, among other purposes, for the pur- pose of being devoured by others ; the fatty juices of the one made for the stomach of the other. The one was cre- ated with special faculties of various kinds which would be of use in capturing and subsidizing its prey; with optical powers and keen scent to enable it to find the cunning hiding-place ; and with fleet wings and legs and other prehensile facilities to capture its prey, and armed with instruments of death to destroy it. The claws, talons, and teeth, and other structural apparatus of car- niverous kinds, point to the destruction of life as final cause, as distinctly and unequivocally as the structure of the eye indicates its final cause to be vision. They are alike adapted to their end and necessary to their end, and equally indispensable to the continued existence of 262 REYOXD THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. the life. Thus the fashion, habits, and necessities of the structures built by life proclaim death to be normal and primitive. It is born of creation, not of retribution. It is God's offspring direct, not a penal device. It ex- ists in the bosom of sinless, not sinning nature. My third proof is derived from the law of fecundation or propagation obtaining among living things. Each species of life has its specific law of propaga- tion and fecundation, which is a part of its original en- dowment and investiture. These laws determine the amount and method of life contained potentially in each creation. They are of the essence of creation — the first or properly creative act, including all after develop- ments of the life principle or nature. The law declares itself by the operations of nature. In this way we be- come cognizant of its existence. Now, it is my purpose to show that these included laws of the propagation of life are inconsistent with the idea of the permanence of the atomic lives, or individuals, which come to existence by their operation, and by this means to show that per- ishability of the individual lives was an inclusion of the plan of life itself, so tracing death to the original decree or purpose of God as normal. The scheme of life, as to its breadth and variety, even in the measure in which it has come to our knowledge, is not simply wonderful, it is amazing; we cannot attempt the survey of any con- siderable part of it, but must suffice with one or two illustrations. Prepare to be surprised at what follows. I am sure the event will astonish you more than you can imagine. Let us take for our first illustration the little English BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 263 sparrow, suggested by hearing its vigorous chatter this snowy morning from the cover of a neighboring ivy. Within a few years it has become as familiar to the parks and groves of America, and as great a favorite in our homes, as it has always been amid the lawns and ivy- grown vales of Europe. It is well known that it is both an exceedingly hardy and prolific species — having young with great frequency and persistency — not improbably averaging, in the case of a healthy bird, not less than a score of offspring, which, indeed, is a moderate estimate. Suppose two of these beautiful creatures to have been originally created, and the law of their being to have been that they should propagate a single brood of not more than four, and their fecundation then cease ; their off- spring to be subject to the same law, the fresh brood on- coming when the parent bird attained its twelfth month : thus each year producing double the birds of the preced- ing. Now suppose all endowed with permanence of life, what would be the result as to the number of sparrows at the end of two hundred years, or at the two hundredth generation ? It is a simple arithmetic problem, which any ordinary child may work out in a few hours by starting with two and multiplying the product by two two hun- dred times, or doubling each year for two hundred years, or more quickly yet, the result may be ascertained by reference to logarithmetic tables. The experiment will show that they would reach the sum of 3,262,019,678,- 459, 263, 839, 964, 499, 350, 631, 378,022,737,142,959,936,- 020,783,562,752, which, if read after the French method of notation, would be (counting all the inferior num- bers as ciphers) three octillions of decillions; a sum so 264 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. enormous as to transcend all power of conception or ex- pression almost. Let us now inquire what disposition could be made of this amount of life, if there were no other lives to be provided for. What relation, do you suppose, would the sparrows have to the square inches on the earth's surface ? I have propounded this ques- tion to many thoughtful and even scholarly men and women, and have found a few who, after a little reflec- tion, imagined there might be nearly a sparrow for each square inch. In fact, it shows the number of sparrows to be more than three hundred millions of decillions for each square inch. If you doubt, reduce the two hundred millions of square miles which constitute the earth's surface to square inches. You will find the number to be 8,614,775,040,000,000,000, which you will find will go into the above number more than three hundred millions of decillions of times. Suppose a sparrow to be an inch in height, the earth at the end of two hundred years would be surmounted with a column of sparrows three hundred millions of decillions of inches high. There are 63,360 inches in a mile; the column would, therefore, be more than four thousand decillions of miles high. The sun is one hundred millions of miles from the earth ; the column would, therefore, tower into space forty octillions of times higher than the sun — nothing but sparrows. Take another view. The sun is a globe 888,000 miles in diameter. The solid contents of this vast body, re- duced to cubic half inches, shows the number of half-inch cubes to be, in round numbers, seven decillions. Multi- ply this by five hundred millions, the number of similar BE YOND THE GRA VE— APPENDIX. 265 bodies within the reach of the greatest telescopic power, and we have thirty-five billions of decillions. This sum will go into the number of sparrows about nine hundred trillions of times. Now, allowing a sparrow to be equal to a cube of half an inch, they would in two hundred years be equal in bulk to four hundred and thirty-nine quadrillions nine hundred trillions of universes as large as the one known to us, or it would require all the sub- stance of the universe multiplied nine hundred trillions of times to furnish materials for sparrows' bodies. If we suppose the sparrows to have existed since Adam's creation, the figures to represent their number would make a row one thousand eight hundred units long, and the number of universes required to supply these bodies would be expressed by a row of figures one thousand seven hundred and fifty-five units long. Let us substitute men for sparrows. Suppose, as in the former case, each generation to double, or each hu- man pair to have four children, and none die ; as we are now about the two hundredth generation, the figures at the present time would be the same as in the above cal- culation. Let us give a foot square to each man, and suppose the average height to be four feet, what would be the result as to the relation of men to the square feet on the earth's surface ? The number of men would be in round numbers, as al- ready stated, 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,- 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or, in round numbers, three octillions of decillions. Then add 5,575,- 680,000,000,000 quadrillions of square feet on the earth's surface. This would go into the above more than five hun- 34 266 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. dred billions of decillions of times, which would be the number of men for each square foot. As, by supposition, the average height is four feet, the column of human flesh would tower into space to the inconceivable height of two trillions of decillions of feet, which, divided by 5,280, the number of feet in a mile, would show four hundred millions of decillions of miles, or, as shown by dividing this sum by 100,000,000, the number of miles the sun is from the earth, it would be four decillions of times higher than the sun. Now, as it takes a ray of light eight minutes to reach the earth from the sun, it would require more than thirty-two decillions of min- utes to traverse the length of this column of human flesh ; and as there are but 525,600 minutes in a year, it would require fifty octillions of years for the ray to make the transit, a measure of which there are no parallels known even in the sidereal spaces — quintillions of times greater than the distance between us and the most remote nebula. Take still another illustration. This time it shall be from the most fecund realm of life. The cod-fish is said by naturalists to spawn 3,000,000 eggs in a single season. Suppose the eggs to become fish, and the same law to obtain for each — the law of its species — at the end of ten years the number of fish would amount to 214,- 449, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 ,000, 000, 000, 000.- 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 millions of decillions. This, divided by the number of cubic feet in a cube the diameter of the world, that is 8,000 miles, (which would be 75,365,351,424,000,000,000,000 sextillions,) would show more than three millions of decillions. Suppose one hun- dred fish for each cubic foot, each weighing ten pounds, BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 267 the cube, therefore, weighing 1,000 pounds — which is six times the weight of granite, three times the weight of lead, and nearly equal to the weight of gold — we should then have thirty thousand decillions of worlds the size of the earth, of the weight of gold, of nothing but tissue of cod-fish, in ten years. We have introduced but three varieties of life of the millions of millions of species that the great God made to dwell on the face of the earth, and we have discovered that these three would, in the space of a few years, not merely crowd the entire sur- face of the earth, but would pile it higher than the ut- most known heavens if death did not cut short their existence. What would it be if all the species were deathless? Nothing is more certain or obvious than that He who originated the realm of life, and appointed its fecundity, appointed death as its necessaiy concom- itant. The one order included the other; birth carried death not less certainly and necessarily than life in its embrace. My fourth argument is, that death existed before sin, and could not, therefore, be penal. The historical ar- gument, like the two preceding, is independent, and in itself conclusive. Geological science discloses an extremely high an- tiquity for the globe on which we dwell, and that throughout all its ages of life it has been the abode of death. Man is a parvenu, a modern creation, the very latest. It is, indeed, but a few thousand years since he came to his home, tenanted for uncounted millions be- fore. This is the teaching of both records, the inspired and the geological. Among all the ancient memorials 268 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. of life there is no trace of him, but all those outside memorials are memorials of death as much as life, show- ing that all along over all the surfaces of the globe life and death equally prevailed. The globe itself is a vast catacomb, corded to its deepest base with remains of species and orders extinct cycles of ages before any of the present races made it their home. No one who has any information in the premises pretends any more to doubt these facts. Thus sin, which entered the world "by one man," is new, while death is ancient. The cause cannot be subsequent to the effect. To prove the force of this overwhelming fact two idle conceits have been invented. One, that earth was the scene of an an- cient rebellion of some pre-Adamite man, or possibly of the angels who kept not their first estate, and from that sin emanated the long line of death whose desolations extend over geological eras. This vain imagination, of course, neither admits of nor requires an answer. The other is the supposition of so wise a man as Horace Bush- nell. We are constrained to express our surprise that so wild a dream should have emanated from so sane a brain. It is, that death reigned over these ancient races as anticipative penal effects of the Adamic sin — not death simply, but all disorders and abnormal conditions of nature. Indeed, Dr. Bushnell holds that sin is a dy- namical force, which, whenever introduced, may work all manner of evil throughout the whole realm of nature. His chapter on the anticipative consequences of sin should be read, both as an ingenious, statement and to do justice to his view. But the whole theory, we think, is absurd, because of the presupposition on which it rests. BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 269 It is invented to explain a difficulty which is purely chimerical. Why need sin be supposed to account for natural death ? What principle of divine justice is mani- fested by tracing the death of unsinning races to the sin of a sinning race ? Is it any more difficult to suppose that their death was included, as a fact, in their being, than that it was retributive of sins to which they were no party ? Surely not. Ethically the theory is fundament- ally incorrect. THE END. H 148 82 A ** v \ 6*" «. A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724) 779-21 " : * ^ IV- «• * ^o 1 * ^ ^ r- ^ % & : *W V ^ «. *jJNIft^» Ta x^ + .&.£>. ,y .!i^.%