XI.

IMMORTALITY.

PSALM Viii. 5. -"For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor "

6. "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet.”

2 TIMOTHY i. 10. Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light,

ECCLESIASTES xii. 7. "Then shall the dust return to earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

ONE of the grandest and most precious doctrines of the Christian religion, is the doctrine of human Immortality. The meaning of this doctrine is, that there is something in us all, which fire cannot consume, nor waters drown, nor death assail; that each one of us has an individuality, an identity, a personality, which is unsusceptible of decay, impregnable to corruption, without possibility of perishing.

Christ taught that we should live after the death of the body; and his disciples reiterated his teachings. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, promised "eternal life" to all those who should patiently continue in welldoing. In the 15th chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians, he twice declares, in the most explicit manner, that this mortal shall put on Immortality; and, in his Second Epistle to Timothy, he affirms that Christ [245]

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"abolished death," and "brought life and Immortality to light through the Gospel."

The idea of Immortality differs from that of Eternity. We conceive of Immortality as having a beginning, but no end; but we conceive of Eternity as having neither beginning nor end. Hence it is proper to speak of eternity as the attribute of God; but of immortality as the attribute of man.

This doctrine of Immortality, though under the most various forms, has constituted a prominent item in the faith of almost all religions. It seems, therefore, natural to man. We say that vegetation is natural to the earth, because, whenever the requisite conditions coexist, there vegetation springs up. So this idea of Immortality, with very few exceptions, seems to have sprung up spontaneously in the human mind. The ideas of the eternity of God, and the immortality of man, go naturally together. As soon as the conception of a Future Existence is once formed, then the sentiments of Hope and Fear fortify and deepen it. Men, too, have a natural expectation of reward for doing well; they have as natural a sentiment of Fear, of Retribution for doing ill; and if they are to be rewarded or punished, this necessitates the idea of a time in which they are to receive their deserts.

Most nations first conceived of the World of Spirits as subterranean. Here we must recollect that in ancient times, and before the globular form of the earth was known, the best geographers supposed the earth to be an extended plane. The firmament was an indefinitely vast space above it; and, of course, there was an indefinitely vast space below, or under it. Some of the ancients supposed that the place of happiness was above,

and the place of retribution below. Others, as the Romans, enlightened, or comparatively enlightened as they were, placed both their Paradise and their Hades below. Some nations have but one place, occupied in common by all the dead, though with different fortunes for the good and the evil. Most religions have, at least, two such places. The Persians had seven different regions, adapted, of course, to seven different grades of moral character. The Hindoos had twenty-four, thus making provision for still further discriminations in regard to human deserts. I think the New Testament teaches an indefinite number of degrees, or gradations, in the future condition of mankind; not seven only, not twenty-four only, but just as many grades as there are degrees of merit, or demerit. How else are we to understand what Christ says of its being more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, and even for Sodom, in the day of judgment, than for the cities where he had preached, and which refused to hear? How otherwise are we to understand his words, "In my Father's house are many mansions?" and the parable of the talents; that those who had been faithful over a few things here on earth, should be promoted to the command of many things hereafter. The inevitable implication is, that our condition hereafter is to have relation to our character here.

Another doctrine which has gained almost universal acceptance throughout Christendom, is closely allied to this parent-doctrine of a Future Life, namely, the doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection, a belief that the very body which dies, is decomposed, is restored to its original chemical particles, and mingles its solid parts with the solid material of the earth, its gases with

the winds, and its fluids with the waters, shall come together again, atom to atom, bone to bone, fibre to fibre, and reconstruct the body which the spirit left.

The common idea of Christendom has been, that the spirits of all the millions and millions of men who have ever lived, would, at the Judgment Day, by some mysterious affinity, find out the particles of matter from which they had been separated at death, gather them into a body, and then re-enter that body, in order to receive, in the very body which they had inhabited, while upon earth, the rewards or punishments of the Future Life. In Cruden's Concordance, a work in almost universal use as a book of reference, under the word "Resurrection," we find the common belief of the age thus stated :

"The Divine Laws are the rule of duty to the entire man, and not to the soul only; and they are obeyed or violated by the soul and body in conjunction. The soul designs, the body executes. The senses are the open ports to admit temptations. Carnal affections deprave the soul, corrupt the mind, and mislead it. The heart is the fountain of profaneness, and the tongue expresses it. Thus the members are instruments of iniquity. And if the body is obedient to the holy soul in doing, or suffering for God, and denies its sensual appetites and satisfactions, in compliance with reason and grace, the members are instruments of righteousness. Hence it follows," says he, " that there will be a universal resurrection, that the rewarding goodness of God may appear in making the bodies of his servants gloriously happy with their souls, and their souls completely happy in union with their bodies, to which they have a natural inclination;. and His revenging justice may be

manifest in punishing the bodies of the wicked with eternal torments answerable to their guilt.'

This idea continued to prevail even among learned and philosophic divines, until recently; and even now, I suppose, it is held by a great majority of the Christian Church.*

In modern times, however, science has asserted its claims to be heard on this subject, in the same way that, heretofore, it asserted its right to be heard on the questions of Geology, and Astronomy, and Psychology, &c. ; and, at last, after almost incredible opposition and obloquy, has made itself heard, and respected.

Science asks such questions as these: Suppose some portions of the world to have been so populous, that, already, some of the identical material which has been incorporated into the bodies of one generation, has decayed, passed into the great laboratory of nature, been used again for the growth of fruit or vegetable, and from these has been re-incorporated into the bodies,

* I have a very vivid recollection that in one of the school books most extensively used in the public schools of New England, when I was a boy, there was a description of the Resurrection, in poetry, in which the air was represented as filled, and the sun as almost darkened, by the parts and fragments of men, - heads, arms, legs, &c., on their way across continents. and over oceans, to meet and join the bodies to which they respectively belonged. And so deeply did that affect my mind, that I remember distinctly the old school-house in which I was sitting, and all the attendant circumstances, as clearly as if it had been but yesterday. And though I accepted the general statement as true, with childish trustfulness, yet it did puzzle me. even at that tender age, to conceive, if one member had been lost in one country, and another in another; if a soldier or sailor had lost an arm in one battle, and a leg in another, on another continent, or on a distant ocean, how the scattered fragments would know which way to steer to find their fellows!