VI. THE SOUL IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE RETAINS ITS APPROPRIATE HUMAN FORM. The question has, no doubt, often come up to every reflecting and sober mind, What is the form or shape of the soul? how does it exist in its disembodied state? Of the mode of existence, or of the form of the soul, so to speak, when disembodied, our conceptions can not be otherwise than vague and inadequate. Souls, however, in the disembodied state, must still possess qualities that are analogous to form and feature, voice and hearing. Such seems to be the most rational as well as the most Scriptural idea. It is, indeed, the individual soul that gives to the bodily form and features, the voice and hearing, their individual peculiarity and identity even here. Nor do we know that it can be regarded as an absurd hypothesis that every soul has a human form corresponding, in a measure, at least, to that of the body, and that it retains this distinctive form when it enters the spirit-world. A singular physiological fact, mentioned by some writers, may not be unworthy of mention in this connection. If every thing in the human body, except the nerves, were suddenly removed, leaving the tissue of nerves in the same position they occupied when they were connected with the other material ele ments, there would still be left a perfect human form as addressed to the eye. Take away all except the bones, and you still have a human form. Again, take away all except the veins and arteries, and the same result is obtained. The query raised by these writers is whether this fact may not be suggestive of the soul likewise having a human form. This may not be altogether irrelevant to that declaration of an apostle, "There is a natural [physical] body, and there is a spiritual body," (1 Cor. xv, 44;) and, again, "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." (2 Cor. v, 1.) The idea of a spiritual body, or of the soul's possessing a bodily form, at least, has the virtue of being a universal, if not instinctive, sentiment of mankind. The heathen poets and philosophers thought and wrote of the manes or shades of their departed friends as still retaining their human form. Their universal teaching, expressed in their philosophy as well as poetry, is that "Man, though dead, retains Part of himself; th' immortal mind remains; Ulysses, where he is represented in the Odyssey as visiting the regions of the dead, recognizes, by their form, those he had known on earth. Nothing can be more touching than the scene where he discovers the shade of his mother. All the recollections of childhood and of her tenderness and love come back upon him. He rushes to embrace her, but she eludes his grasp, he being yet in the flesh, and vanishes like an empty dream. Finding her eluding his grasp, and escaping away from him, he exclaims, with the most tender affection, "Fliest thou, loved shade, while I thus fondly mourn! Turn to my arms, to my embraces turn! Is it, ye powers, that smile at human harms, The same general view seemed to be all-pervading among the mass of the people as well as among the philosophers and poets. It was closely connected in their minds with the recognition of each other and their reunion in the spirit-land. Thus they cherished their affection for their departed friends, and death was disrobed of half its ter rors by the expectation of greeting again the loved ones already passed away to the regions of the blessed. The Scriptures most clearly recognize this grand truth; for wherever the dead are spoken of, or represented as making their appearance upon earth, they are uniformly referred to as being in their appropriate human form. Hence it is that recognition and identification take place. This idea has prevailed in all ages. It is the universal conception of human nature. It is an unconscious element of that faith in the heart of the Christian, which exults in the confident expectation of seeing the loved ones that have gone into eternity, when he also shall have crossed over the irremeable flood. So does the Bible represent Dives to have seen and recognized Abraham and Lazarus, and them also to have recognized him; so were seen Moses and Elias; and so the great multitude around the throne of God— whose robes had been washed and who had gone up out of great tribulation-so were they seen by St. John. Their form, their words, their actions all marked them as having been once beings of earth, in spite of all the transformations of circumstance, and time, and place. They were disembodied; new scenes enchanted them, new glories blazed upon them; every thing was wondrously new; but through all the human and the personal were visible and distinctly marked. The mind confidently, almost instinctively, looks forward to a reunion with the departed in another world. "O, how shall I exult," says Cicero, "when I attain the society of my kindred and friends! what intercourse can be more joyous, what meetings and embraces more sweet!" And then, apostrophizing his departed daughter, he exclaims, “Thou, therefore, now separated from me, not deserting me, but sometimes looking back, lead me, where I may yet enjoy the conversation and the sight of thee!" This is not rhetoric, but spontaneous aspiration-the consciousness of immortal life gushing forth in the soul. A crushed heart only can yield an odor that savors so highly of immortality. Eloquent as was this language of Cicero, it was not more sublime than the dying language of an Indian mother. She was the wife of Little Wolf, a chief of the Iowa tribe, and had accompanied her husband to Europe. She had already lost three children, and while in London lost a fourth and only child. The iron truly entered her soul, and she withered and pined away in grief, till she died, soon after reaching Paris. Her husband endeavored to comfort her, and to turn her thoughts again to life, but she only replied, "No! no! my four children recall me; I see them by the side of the Great Spirit; they stretch out their arms to me, and are astonished that I do not join them." There was uttered the true, simple, sublime language of nature. Had you said to that Indian mother that her departed ones had been divested of their human form, and not as children should she know them any more, how would she have exclaimed, "O, say not so! how shall I know my darling, If changed her form, and vail'd her shining hair; How shall I know her there? On Memory's page, by viewless fingers painted, O, say not so! for I could clasp her even My little one, she was a folded lily, Sweeter than any on the azure wave, But night came down, a starless night and chilly- Yes, as a child, serene and noble poet O heaven were dark were children wanting there; I hope to clasp my bud, as when I wore it, A dimpled baby fair. Though years have flown toward my blue-eyed daughter, E'en as a child above. E'en as a babe, my little dove-eyed daughter, It shall not be in vain. Wait as a child-how shall I know my darling, If changed her form, and vail'd with shining hair; The demand of this sentiment is met when we come to the recognition of the appropriate human form in the departed. Identity is what we want; nature craves for identity, and Scripture gives back the response that assures us this identity shall remain. All the anticipated glories of a reunion with the departed are enhanced by this prospect. The form may be vastly improved, infinitely more glorious, but it will be the same. Our friends or our children, who have been absent from us a few years, sometimes become so changed that we do not at first recognize them, though their general form and identity are the same. So may it be with our friends in heaven. Our aged parents, who totter with halting step and wasting frame to the grave, may there be rejuvenated and glowing with celestial life. Our children, nipped like the buds of Spring, may be so changed in the transition and by the rapid growth of heaven that it may be necessary for some attendant angel to point them out before we could recognize their beatified forms. It shall gladden our eyes, as we emerge from the gloom of the dark valley, to behold how glorious they have become, and to receive their welcomes to the land of everlasting bliss. "Tell me," says Dr. Berg, "ye who have seen the open tomb receive into its bosom the sacred trust committed to its keeping-ye who have heard the sullen rumblings of the death-clods, as they dropped upon the |