if it holds true, also, of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. I pass over the evidences of the moral government of the Deity, as unnecessary to be considered here; since it is obvious that they must consist in a copious induction of examples, to prove that the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice are the great objects of all the general laws by which the world is governed. The only argument brought against this doctrine, being an enumeration of cases of a seemingly promiscuous distribution of happiness and misery in this life, is an application of the rules of physical inquiry, so that abstract reasoning is admitted to be out of place on either side. These apparent exceptions, this allotment of good and evil in a measure which often does not correspond with our sense of merit and demerit, create a presumption, it is said, that the scheme of moral government, which has only its beginning here, will be completed in a future state.

If the immortality of the soul did not open so attractive a field for general disquisition, it would be difficult to conceive of it as supported by abstract arguments, or as clouded by metaphysical doubts and difficulties. "If a man dies, shall he live again?" The question here relates to a fact of the second order, to an event which is to take place, a future occurrence; if the present, or actual, existence of the mind or person is a fact, so also is its future existence. Our means of answering the question, too, are more limited and imperfect in this case, than would suffice for the establishment of any fact in physical science. As it relates to the future, we can have no sensible evidence of it; and as the grave confessedly does not give up its dead to our bodily apprehension, the testimony of others, except so far as they speak of a revelation, is also set aside. The axiom re

develops itself into triplicity," constitute the Divine Intelligence itself, — the tria juncta in uno, the mystery of the Godhead. Those who are satisfied with this conception of the Deity, can accept also Cousin's demonstrative proof of His existence. But for our own part, we want words to express our indignation at this impious harlequinade of words, - this mode of binding together three dry sticks of abstract ideas, and then baptizing the miserable fagot as God.

specting the uniformity of nature, which is the usual foundation of our reasonings from the past to the future, cannot aid us here; because we are not asking now, whether it is probable that an observed law of nature will continue in force; the question is, whether there has ever been such a law, whether a messenger has ever come back to us from that invisible bourne. Accordingly, it is distinctly admitted by the most judicious writers on natural theology, that the argument, after all, is but a series of presumptions, which we indulge the more readily, because the conclusion to which they point is one in which all persons willingly acquiesce; it agrees with the involuntary shrinking of the rational mind from the idea of utter extinction. Most of these presumptions were as well stated by the ancient philosophers, by Socrates, and Plato, and Cicero, as by the moderns. The use of such speculations is not to establish the truth of the point in question, but to refute the objections which have been urged against the possibility of the event. It can be shown, that the dissolution of the body does not necessarily lead us to infer the extinction of the soul, but that the presumption lies the other way. It is in this moderate form that the argument from the light of nature is stated by Butler, and it would have been well if Clarke had imitated his reserve. Immortality is no part of the positive teachings of nature; to Revelation alone, can we look for light and life beyond the grave.

source.

Some unsatisfactory conceptions of immortality.-I take no account of those extraordinary speculations, which suppose the soul of man to be a ray or emanation from the Deity, which, at the dissolution of the body, will again be absorbed into its "This seems," says Mr. Stewart, "to have been the opinion of many of the ancient Stoies; and a similar idea has been adopted by some philosophers in modern times, who have compared the soul, when joined to the body, to a small portion of the sea inclosed in a vial; and, when separated from it, to the same water, confounded and intermixed, by the breaking of the vial which contained it, with the ocean from which it was first taken." This is but one of the applications of the doctrine of pantheism; and those who can give up the belief in a personal God,

may be satisfied with this conception of the soul's futurity. But to others, the loss of distinct consciousness and personal identity or individuality, which is implied in this theory, will cause the doctrine to appear little more consoling than a belief in the termination of all things at the grave. The admitted physical fact, that of all the material particles which constitute the body at the instant of death, not one is lost, but all enter into new combinations, and pass through a ceaseless round of growth and decay, gives us an idea of the perpetuity of our corporeal frames, which answers exactly to this pantheistic notion of the immortality of the soul. To speak of different minds being blended together and lost in one general mass of being, is to employ a form of words which is only not injurious to sound doctrine, because it is unintelligible and absurd. Existence is an abstract idea; there is no such thing as existence in general, apart from individual beings, any more than there is such a thing as an audience existing separately from the men and women who compose it. To speak of the annihilation of these persons in their individual capacity, leaving their presence as a general assembly, is nonsense. To such an absurdity are we reduced by confounding abstractions with realities, or employing terms without attaching definite and distinct meaning to them.

The light of nature does not prove immortality properly so called. Yet we have been told, that it is "written legibly in Nature that man is an undying being," and every thing justifies us in saying, that, "if man were made to live for ever, the impress of that intention must be distinctly visible in his very structure." Science, it is accordingly said, must decipher the marks which indicate this intention, and spell out the natural language in which every rational creature is labelled with the promise of immortality, just as it infers, from a mere fragment of a fossil bone, "the whole fashion of the animal to which it belonged, its food, its mode and sphere of existence." But the history which is deciphered by the geologist and the comparative anatomist is that of the past; and not even in their boldest speculations, do they attempt to pry into the secrets of the future, far less, to speak confidently of an endless duration to

come. Science can read the annals of former ages; but it cannot "look into the seeds of time, and see what grain will grow, and what will not." The astronomer hesitates about pronouncing upon the future stability of the system of which our earth is but a part, even on the supposition, that the laws which now seem to control its action shall continue forever in force, without restraint, limit, or interference from the Omnipotent hand which first established them. But who shall say when His purpose shall be accomplished? or who shall scan the designs of the Almighty? The naturalist may declare, if he can, that the flower shall droop and die at the end of a single season; but he finds no evidence that the secret principle which now vivifies it, after it has ceased to hold these material particles together, shall yet continue to be, either animating other forms, or existing apart till time shall be no more. And mental science is equally barren of any distinct promise of the future; the sharpest scrutiny of the phenomena of mind, unguided by special revelation, leaves this doctrine of immortality precisely where it was in the speculations of antiquity, a dim though glorious foreboding, a splendid doubt.

We are not surprised, then, to find the author of the assertion just quoted rebuking those who conceive "of the eternal world as situated on the other side of the tomb," and telling them that eternity "is here and now, - that they are in it, and that it is in them." It is all a juggle of words, then, which substitutes a flight of rhetoric for the severe expression of a scientific or a religious truth, and reduces the immortality of the soul to a figure of speech. Unquestionably, it is a tolerable metaphor to say, that in good deeds there is length of years; but it is paltering with words, to hold up this trope as an enunciation or a proof of the doctrine that the soul shall never die.

It is a fact that religion enjoins certain duties.—I need not give but one other illustration of the truth, that religion is founded entirely upon matters of fact, and must be supported, therefore, by moral evidence. Religion inculcates certain duties; it enjoins some motives and modes of conduct, and forbids others, and this, too, by the highest of all sanctions, the com

mand of God. These injunctions are, in great part, coincident with the moral precepts of our own hearts; the Divine law and the law of conscience, whenever they meet, harmonize with each other, and, so far as they regard only the outward act, are reduced to one. Still, to the religious man, there is an additional sanction, a new source of obligation; the act, once deemed obligatory only from an instinctive perception of its rightfulness, now becomes a manifestation of obedience, a religious duty, an act of worship. Virtuous actions as such, or in themselves considered, are not religious deeds; mere virtue must be consecrated by reference to the Divine will, before it can assume even a resemblance to holiness. I do not say, that the moral sense is of imperfect obligation, so that it must be buoyed up and enforced by the will of God, before its dictates are binding upon man. Right is of necessary and inherent obligation, anterior to all command. But the precept added gives another aspect to the duty, and creates a new joy in the fulfilment of it. A life which is irreproachable before the world, which is warmed by all the kindly affections and elevated by a steadfast adherence to noble principles, is still an irreligious and godless one, if its acts are not sanctified by this reference to the Supreme Will. This is but a definition of religion, the meaning of which, as shown by its etymology and its universal acceptance, is to religate, or to bind anew, to the performance of duty, by offering an additional motive and guide; and this meaning constitutes the only possible distinction between religion and mere morality. In the family, a rule obligatory in itself acquires a new claim to observance from the command or wish of a parent, the motives of obedience and love being thus added to our almost involuntary homage to conscience. So, in the great human family, the primal duties of life, truthfulness, temperance, justice, and charity, become alike more awful and engaging, I do not say more binding,- because the performance of them is the declared will of our Heavenly Father.

Observe, then, that the whole practice of religion depends upon our knowledge of this fact, that God has commanded us to do, or to abstain from doing, certain acts. It matters not