rily conclusive evidence on their own behalf, must have the question answered, as it best can be, by the voice of nature, of reason, and experience. In this light, therefore, entirely apart from Scripture, I propose to consider it. The undiminished and profound interest with which the question is still propounded, by earnest searchers for every ray of truth, entitles it to our very gravest consideration.

Human aspirations now are similar to human aspirations in the days of Job. The same sun which illumined earth in the time of Zoroaster or the Persian Magi, now illumines the same earth on which we tread. The same stars which shone in silence over the birthplace of Jesus, shine as silently upon the birthplace of the child which begins its breathing life to-day. Down in the same cold, noiseless bed which received the remains of the remotest generations, we lay the inanimate remains of the wise or great, the low or high, the infant or the sage, who ceases to move among us now.

The variations of human experience are the same as in long-past centuries. The last utterance of one before the lamp of life expires is a dread apprehension of an unspeakably awful calamity, in the unseen sphere he is approaching. The last accents of another, as he stands upon the utmost verge of life, express an unbounded trust in felicities unutterable in a spirit-world of immortality. The last calm assurance of another is that he feels himself passing away into the undisturbed repose of a dreamless and everlasting sleep. The curtain drops, and our mortal vision cannot pierce it, to follow any one of them, to test the truthfulness of his convictions or

the reality of his hopes. It only remains for us to interpret the indications which surround us in our present complex life.

We can pursue the inquiry, observing the analogy of life, and endeavoring to determine what message nature and conscience bring to us, bearing on its page the stamp of reason, and in its onward life we may yet, in reasonable faith, see

"The spirit, trace its rising track,

Even where the farthest heaven had birth;

Its eye shall roll, through chaos, back,

Before creation peopled earth."

Each one, with the eye of reasonable trust, may see enough to say, with a joyful and holy assurance, I die, but it is only a part, not all of me, which dies. "I die not all, for a myriad things

That will live and think and do

Have felt my life in its secret springs,
And will feel it their being through.

"We die not all: we shall live on earth
In the words and deeds of the past,

And death to the soul is a glorious birth,
Where no seeds of decay are cast."

Mathematical demonstration cannot be expected. I cannot prove to you the existence of God. I cannot even prove to you my own present existence, and not any more can I prove the soul's continued existence after dissolution. But the closer the examination, the clearer does it seem to me that each one of these propositions- the existence of God, the soul's existence now, and its continued existence beyond the change of death-is equally susceptible of illustration or proof, amounting to a moral certainty, a certainty investing death with no dread,

and the grave with no gloom, but an impression which fills the mind with the serene vision of softened splendors,

"Like light through summer foliage,
Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm and yet so shadowy too,
As makes the very darkness there
More beautiful than light elsewhere."

DISCOURSE XIX.

FUTURE LIFE.-IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

IF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN? -Job xiv. 14.

"Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?

"For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?"

So instantaneous and complete is the transition at death from the known and seen to the unknown and unseen, from warm, intelligent life to cold, dull deadness, that no one can be entirely indifferent to the possibilities of the invisible. Though no testimony may be found sufficiently weighty and conclusive to convince some minds of the reality of any existence beyond that which is seen and certain, yet no one can be supposed to leave the warm light of present being without casting one longing, lingering look behind.

Aside from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures,

we have no other resources of knowledge on this great subject than those common to the more enlightened among the ancients, the pages of nature, experience, and consciousness interpreted by the light of reason. We have found that Christian critics of every name appear to coincide in the opinion, that the Hebrew Scriptures furnish no explicit revelation, nor even any direct statement, as to the immortality of the human soul. We also have found that among the men who now inquire, in the spirit of the ancient Hebrew, "If a man die, shall he live again?" there are those by whom the teachings of St. Paul and the New Testament writers are not regarded as distinct, authoritative, or final. It is probably the numerous and conflicting expositions of the Christian writings which have induced many to lay the New Testament entirely aside, as a witness on this question of futurity; and it is neither just, manly, nor philosophical to turn away from such, bestowing on them the ungracious epithet of sceptic or unbeliever. This will neither convert them, nor establish truth. It was in no such scornful spirit that Paul reasoned with Felix, proving all things, and holding fast the good. As we are not permitted by the objector to cite the New Testament as conclusive authority, the question obviously becomes one of probabilities. Are the probabilities opposing greater than the probabilities favoring a continued existence of man's spiritual nature?

One of the objections urged with greatest force is the apparent decay of mind simultaneously with the decay of body, or sometimes previous to physical decay. To say the most of this, it is only a pre