Whatever may be the change that takes place in death, it is evidently one that does not destroy the identity of the individual. The rich man who lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torment, had not only the remembrance of his luxurious and godless life, but also of his relationship to five brothers, who had probably been the companions of his pleasures and his sins. Our personal identity we carry forward with us into the other life. But, how is this done?

In this life there seems to be a bodily as well as mental identity. In what this bodily identity consists it is not so easy to determine. An unceasing process of change is ever going on in our physical systems. To-day we are not what we were yesterday, nor shall we be to-morrow what we are to-day. Yet, somehow, we think and speak of ourselves as the same. This flux and efflux of the system may go on for half a century, till every particle of it has been changed many times; and yet our identity of person remains. Think of the bodily changes of half a century! rising from infancy to mature life, or going even beyond to the decrepitude of age! And yet the bodily identity is unaffected. But, at death, this body is dropped in the dust. The identity carried forward into another life, then, is not that of the body. It must be identity of soul. And all along in the unfolding of the future life, prior to the resurrection, this identity of the soul, as the very soul that once inhabited the earthly body, is either roundly asserted or distinctly implied.

How clearly is this expressed in that inimitable prayer of our blessed Redeemer for his followers: "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am," (John xvii, 24;) not that spirits newly createdhowever exalted or glorious-but these identical followers and companions in the earthly life! This same identity

was proclaimed from the cross of Calvary, and amid the thrilling scenes of the crucifixion-"to day shalt THOU"not some other newly-created spirit, but "THOU" crucified, penitent, dying companion in suffering-"be with me in paradise." Our dust returns to the earth, but "the spirit shall return unto God;" when the days of our years are "cut off" we do not become extinct, but "fly away;" the assassin may kill the body, but is "not able to kill the soul;" and as touching those called dead, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living;" and "we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle"-the body-"were dissolved," we do not cease to be, but are simply "absent from the body." And then that magnificent apocalyptic vision--"I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held; and they cried with a loud voice, saying: How long, O Lord! holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Α more explicit recognition of the conscious existence of the soul after the death of the body it would be difficult to embody in any form. The bodies of these martyrs had been slain; those bodies were still disunited from the soul; and yet there was not only conscious being, but conscious identity of themselves as the sufferers of wrong from wicked men.

It is useless to raise any quibble about the form or speech of disembodied souls. Such objectors only place their own ignorance in opposition to the boundless possibilities of the spiritual realm. We might have enumerated many additional proof-texts, but these are sufficient for full demonstration wherever the authority of the Bible is received.

It is not too much to say, then, that the suggestions and intimations of human reason concerning the indestructibility

of mind, are fully authenticated and confirmed by the revelation of God. He who has implanted the instincts of immortality in the human soul has also confirmed its glorious heritage in his Word, and thus given him the double seal of immortality. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

VII. OBJECTIONS AND CONCLUDING REMARK.

With a notice of one or two objections, we close the present discussion.

1. The objection to the immortality of mind is sometimes made that the mind apparently comes into life with the body, waxes into maturity with it, grows old with it, and dies with it. The inference the skeptic would draw from this is that the mind also dies with the body. There is something striking-ad captandum-in this objection. It appeals to the common observation of life; and, at first view, seems to be sustained by the facts of human history. But, on closer observation, we shall find the facts of history fail to confirm it. The full vigor of body is often, perhaps generally, attained by the age of twenty-five or thirty; while the full vigor of intellect is rarely attained before the age of forty or fifty. Instances almost without number are constantly coming within our observation, in which there is a most vigorous growth of intellect when the body has already begun to decline with age. A single instance of gray hairs, and a debilitated body incasing a soul vigorous in all its mental and moral powers, is sufficient to demonstrate that this assumption is utterly untenable. And who has not seen such instances again and again?

Besides all that, we have already shown, from incontrovertible facts, that the most vigorous intellects are not unfrequently incumbered with weak and sickly bodies; nay, that even amidst the torpor of approaching death, the mind

often retains its full vigor up to the very last moment of earthly existence. This analogy of the materialist-by which he would reason from the death of the body to the death of the mind-utterly fails in its essential links; and, therefore, however attractive and imposing in its enunciation, it is, when subjected to the rigid scrutiny of science and fact, found to be without conclusiveness or force.

2. It is objected, again, that those punitive words, perish, destruction, and death, in the Bible indicate the utter annihilation of the living principle, and, therefore, contradict the doctrine that the mind is immortal. The objector claims that when it is said, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," (Luke xiii, 3,) and that the wicked "shall be punished with everlasting destruction," (2 Thess. i, 9,) and, also, that "the soul that sinneth it shall die," (Ecc. xiii, 20,) the objector claims that these and kindred passages imply that the souls thus condemned will be utterly annihilated, or absolutely cease to exist. This would indeed upset our doctrine of the soul's essential immortality by the will of God. But do the passages teach such a doctrine? do the words contain such a breadth of meaning?

No one will contend that such a meaning is necessarily deduced from any philological analysis of them. We have a short method, then, to take with the objector, and which will show how mistaken are his interpretations, and how groundless his assumptions: "Lord, save us: we perish," (Matt. viii, 25,) said the disciples, when trembling in apprehension, not of annihilation, but of drowning. "It can not be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem," (Luke xiii, 33,) means nothing more, certainly, than being put to death. The prodigal exclaims, "I perish with hunger." (Luke xv, 17.) Our fastidious objector will hardly make more out of this than that the prodigal was in danger of dying with hunger; annihilation, evidently, did not enter into his thoughts.

So with suffering "destruction." It is not to be annihilated, but to be banished "from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power." (2 Thess. i, 9.) When God makes complaint against his people, "O, Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help," (Hosea xiii, 9.) he can not mean that they had annihilated themselves; for what avail would it be to make promises of help to beings that had become utterly annihilated? What mockery to assume to address them even!

Still less reason for supposing the punishment of "death" implies the annihilation of the condemned; for "wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Rom. v, 12.) If the objector chooses to take this in its full force, we do not see how he is to escape the utter annihilation of the race; but if he assumes that there is a “second death," not necessarily included in this, and which does imply annihilation, then let us see what light the Bible sheds upon the nature of this "second death." We are here told that "the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death." (Rev. xxi, 8.) This certainly can not be annihilation; for into this lake are to be cast, as partakers of this second death, "the devil," and "the beast, and the false prophet," and "death and hell;" and they "shall be tormented day and night forever and ever." "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest, day nor night.”