follows of course that the salvation which is ascribed to it, (pardon the absurdity!) becomes equally unreal. Let us be eareful not to overlook the fact, that whatsoever impairs our idea of the former, necessarily impairs our idea of the latter, and in just the same degree. For it is obvious that we cannot believe in, nor so much as think of, our salvavation in the immortal state, any farther than we recognize our existence there, nor under any other conditions of being than we impute to that state. Again: a similar course of remark is applicable to a somewhat different form of the same general idea. If, while maintaining that all men will be saved in the life to come, we nevertheless proceed to represent that life itself as of so indifferent a kind that it can be of no personal concern to men here, we thereby make whatsoever salvation we are pleased to predicate of it, insignificant and worthless to them. Let us put a case. Suppose that, after having expatiated on the glories of the universal salvation which is to be realized in the next world, I find it convenient, for the sake of carrying out some favorite side-notion of mine, to contend that our personality may there cease, that our souls, or spirits, may there perhaps be absorbed in God, so that we shall no more exist with self-consciousness, nor as individuals. this case, it is clear that I virtually retract all I had said of our future salvation, and of the blessedness of the prospect; since, upon these grounds, those absorbed spirits will no longer be ours, any more than is the puff of breath which we exhaled into the all-surrounding atmosphere, a year ago. And of what possible consequence can it be to us, whether they are to fare well or ill, after they shall have ceased to be ours, and after we shall have ceased to exist, as creatures, to know, or to feel, or to be in any way interested in the event? If I, as a person, am to be utterly extinct when I die, and my soul is to be resolved into some other being, it is no concern of mine what becomes of it, then; and to bid me exult in the glorious prospect, is nonsense, if not mockery. It is easy to see that this is simply the doctrine of annihilation, under cover of a better-sounding name. For no advocate of

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annihilation ever meant any thing more, by it, than the resolving of all the elements of our being back into their original sources. Once more: we may observe that it

will not alter the principle, if we slightly modify the case, and give it the following form. Suppose that I am too wary to take my stand positively on this doctrine of annihilation, or absorption; that I only retreat towards it, as a refuge, when pressed by difficulties growing out of some incidental position I have adopted. To elude these difficulties, I say, "We have no right to assume that we shall be self-conscious hereafter, because we do not know that this will be the fact. It may be, and it may not be; divine Revelation has not pronounced expressly on the point, and we cannot go beyond its testimony, much less can we draw conclusions from the assumption." Now, suppose it to be true, that the Scriptures do say nothing directly on the point, still, one of two things is certain: I have either made up my mind upon it, notwithstanding their silence; or else I have not. And if I have not,—if I am really in suspense about it, as I would seem to be, there comes up rather a serious inquiry, namely, What right, then, have I to argue that all men will be happy hereafter? For to talk of the happiness of beings who are unconscious, or to pretend that I have any settled faith in the salvation of men hereafter, while I have none in their conscious existence hereafter, is an absurdity which, it may be presumed, no rational creature will avow. And here we may add, that whenever the Scriptures recognize the fact of our future salvation, they of course recognize the fact of our future conscious existence, whether they specify it in set words or not; for it is necessarily included in the very idea of the former. There was no need of their taking the precaution to state, that the persons, who are to be saved, will exist as persons, or be self-conscious. We must remember that neither we, nor the Sciptures, can leave room for the doctrine of universal annihilation, and at the same time teach the doctrine of universal salvation. Nor can the one be defended on the grounds of the other; to admit either, is, without further specification, to set the other aside.

We have sometimes thought it possible to make a wrong use of the very excellent rule, that we are not to go beyond the teachings of the Scriptures, in our doctrine of the future state. Taken in any reasonable sense, it does indeed appear to us an important rule, and one that cannot be

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too strictly observed. But, to this end, it must evidently relate to something more than a repetition of the bare words of Scripture, as a parrot might repeat them; it must embrace all the facts and the views that are given us, in the New Testament, concerning the condition of men after death, and all the conclusions that are logically suggested by these. Any narrower interpretation of the rule, we think, would spoil it for rational purposes. The evident meaning of Christ and his apostles, as gathered from all they say directly on the future state; the ideas and sentiments, with respect to it, which they appear have had in mind when casually alluding to the topic, and especially when using it for present comfort, support, hope, or admonition; and these, too, kept in their natural connexion with the general truths of revelation, and with the necessary forms of thought which are inseparable from the human understanding,-it is these, when so taken, that are what we mean by the teachings of the Scriptures on this point. That they ought to be regarded as the sacred directory in all our inquiries into the "life and immortality brought to light through the gospel," seems evident from the nature of the case. The extravagances of fantastic and independent speculation, on the invisible world, have been of late exemplified in a way to serve as a caution to every sober thinker.

But if it be meant that we must only repeat Scriptural phrases on the subject, without regard to their natural implications under the given circumstances, and without reference to other known truths that stand in obvious relation, then we think the rule becomes absurd, and useless except for quibbling. With it, one might indeed baffle and tease an opponent, who was less adroit at the game, or indisposed to turn the counters upon him; but a believer in divine revelation could do it only by exposing himself to be convicted of inconsistency at the very first move. For he would find that he himself assumes, and is obliged to assume, a thousand particulars, concerning the future state, which the Scriptures do not literally assert, and which they teach in no other way than by general implications, or by leaving common-sense to draw its natural inferences. So far as we recollect, they do not say, in these words, that our souls, or spirits, after death,

will be those we now have, or that the same persons who now live will then exist as persons, or that any human creature will be happy hereafter; and so on, indefinitely. But the reason why they do not make assertions of this kind, doubtless is, that the inspired teachers never thought of going about to block up, with a counter-affirmative, every loop-hole of possible negation. Indeed, it could not be done, were it even attempted. To fore-close all the possibilities of ignoring, among nine hundred millions of human creatures successively, would require nine hundred millions of apostles to be kept steady at writing truisms, from the Christian era down to the end of the world.

II. Let us, however, return from this digression. It appears to us that certain other questions equally affect the value which the doctrine of "life and immortality" has for us. It is sometimes asked, with a degree of doubt and anxiety, Shall we know, hereafter, that we had lived here on earth? shall we then remember our present life? Now, suppose we take the ground that we must keep this matter wholly unsettled in our minds; "because," say we, "the Scriptures do not pronounce upon it expressly, and it would be wrong for us to come to any conclusion that is not set down in the record. We must hold simply the fact of a future happy life, without entering into any of these extra-biblical questions." It seems, then, that there is one extra-biblical assumption which we may hold, namely, that the future life is a happy life. But-to pass by this inconsistency. According to the supposition, we must neither believe, nor disbelieve, that men are conscious after death of having ever existed before. In this case, we would ask, what interest can we have in such a future being? If our memory and our present consciousness are to perish utterly at death, and all the past become as a blank annihilation; if, when we awake in eternity, it shall appear to us as though we were first created at that moment, what difference is it to us, in this life, whether it be said that we are the ones who are then to exist again, or that we are to be annihilated, and that some new species is then to take our place? To ourselves, death will seem to be the last of us. It is true, God may know, hereafter, that the immortal spirits are the same that once lived here

in flesh and blood; the angels, perhaps, may know it; but we shall never know it. And what but the idlest verbiage would it be, to preach to us such an immortality! According to the late hypothesis, called the Developement Theory, we, the men and women who now live, were once clams and oysters, tadpoles and bats, or something of the kind. But we have never seen it argued, even on this hypothesis, that it is matter of felicitation to oysters and tadpoles, that their being is to be developed, at length, into the glorious rank of human creatures, of whom they know nothing, and who in turn will have no self-consciousness reaching back to them. It is of no consequence to the living tadpole, what will become of the thing called his being, after it shall have passed into a new developement wholy disconnected from himself.

Perhaps we shall here be reminded that we are treating a mere negative, a mere ignoring, as though it were an affirmative; since it is not positively denied that we shall hereafter recognize ourselves, but only our right to assert such a fact is denied. We are aware of this. We think it will be seen, however, that the negative position necessarily covers the whole of the ground we have made it to occupy. For it excludes all faith in such a future recognition, and contemplates the life to come without admitting that it is to have any consciousness of our present selves. The link that connects our future with our present being is left out, is ignored; and the subject is treated throughout as if there were none. People sometimes appear to think that, by cautiously keeping their stand on a negative, or by dexterously ignoring, they can elude all responsibility of meeting the logical results. They should be aware that such a position virtually becomes an affirmative, the moment it is used as a premise from which to argue or to demur; and that all its legitimate consequences must then be answered for.

Or, will it be said that, for ourselves, and for our own comfort, we may indeed believe in a connexion of the kind between the present and the future; but that we must not assert it in our instructions to others? This, however, would so obviously be a forced evasion, that we need not follow it far into its consequences. We will only observe, how empty a ministry it would leave us, preach