upon which it exercises itself is as varied as it is abundant; the spirit of man seems to have been made for immortality; it craves after an unending existence; and if it could be proved beyond a doubt that it must perish with the destruction of the tabernacle which it inhabits, there would go up from every tribe and nation one universal burst of execration against the Being who created the soul.

"But," we are told, "the soul was never created at all-it is only the development of one of the higher species of force, and the result of a peculiar organization. Apart from that physical organization, we can not conceive of man's existence; and as the spiritual part of our being originates with the physical, and is subject to all its contingencies, so the actual dissolution of the one must be accompanied with the destruction of the other."

But then we find in man this essential difference which distinguishes him from all other organized beings-there is in him a free, automatic, intelligent power, by which he can control his own movements and regulate his own development. In all other forms of earthly being, the organism is supreme; but man's noblest triumphs are achieved in defiance of his physical organization. And when all his nerves are tingling with fiery passion, and his heart throbbing with strong desire, and his blood

coursing with lightning speed through his veins, and his aching brain impelling him to yield, and in the majesty of his manhood he rises up, and says, "I will not yield!" then he comes to the consciousness of his immortality, for he feels that there is something in him which can defy and subdue the body, and is not subject to all the miserable contingencies by which it is controlled.

"That may sound somewhat grand," is the reply; "but after all, this notion of immortality must be a delusion, because we can form no actual conception of the future life; a disembodied soul, as it is sometimes called, is a simple nonentity. It has no functions, no capacities, no organs, and of course no locality. Men talk as if they had some idea of a spiritual existence, but they have no definite thoughts about the matter. The forms and analogies of the natural world are merely transferred to a domain where they cease to have any significance."

This is not an argument, but only an appeal to the imagination. What conception has an infant of the experiences that are awaiting him in his maturity? It might be worse than useless for us to know any thing very definite as to the outward conditions of our future life, and I think it is very doubtful whether there are any terms in the language that we now use capable of conveying to the

mind a distinct idea of those conditions. Even after we have entered the next stage of being, it is very probable that we shall require the same gradual training and experience, in order to comprehend the new modes of existence which await us there, that are needed in the process of our education here. When the boundary line has been passed, and we find ourselves standing in the presence of eternal realities, the veil may be lifted very slowly, and the glories of our immortality revealed to us, only as we have strength of vision to endure their bright

ness.

"But," adds the objector, "if man is immortal, would there not have been such palpable, unquestionable proof of the fact, that no possible room would have been left for a doubt? Why is it that so many who are really anxious to believe, and even crave after an immortality, are left in such wretched suspense, and find nothing to satisfy them? If there is another world, where we are to dwell hereafter, and where those are now living who once went in and out with us over the same threshold, why does it seem so far off, so impalpable, so unreal?"

There may be good reasons for keeping the future life, to a certain degree, remote from us and inaccessible, inasmuch as this removes the temptation that might otherwise beset us to busy ourselves with

curious speculations about the spiritual world, instead of giving our minds to the faithful discharge of the duties that pertain to our present life. Our work is here, our responsibilities all centre here, and the best preparation we can make for our future life is to be had in doing the work well which God assigns to us here on earth. And no one who is not thus fitting himself for immortality, deserves or can expect to be delivered from anxiety and doubt. Gloom and fear must haunt the man who always dwells amid the clouds and mists of the valley, breathing the thick, contaminated atmosphere of earth; but only let him climb to the mountain-top, where the heavens are clear, and the air is pure, then all his anxieties and doubts will vanish. He will see the bright towers of the New Jerusalem, and hear the echo of its silver bells. He who lives by faith in the Son of God, and obeys His holy law, can not doubt that his Saviour will admit him into an everlasting habitation, when his work here is finished.

"This is life eternal-to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." "Faith is the substance," the basis, "of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It is evidence, because, with the believer, the eternal life

has already begun. He enters upon his immortality when he becomes identified with Christ.

66

"But," it is again asked, "if the proof of an eternal life rests primarily upon divine revelation, how are we to account for the fact that, in the earlier dispensations, as, for instance, in the case of the Mosaic economy, there is no distinct and definite doctrine of immortality disclosed to man? Why was not this fact incorporated into the law, as it was then revealed?"

In the first place, that was a civil code, intended for the regulation of national as well as of private affairs, and there would have been an obvious impropriety in appealing to future rewards and punishments as the sanction of a civil law.

Again, this was not needed. The doctrine of a future life had never been questioned, and was, an element in the popular traditional belief. The patriarchs supposed themselves to have occasional intercourse with spiritual beings and angelic inhabitants of other worlds, and believed that, when they died, they would rejoin those who had gone before them.

There was another reason for the silence of Moses on this subject, growing out of the fact that the doctrine of immortality among the Egyptians had assumed such prominence that it interfered with the