The New York herald., 1872-09-15
Is Man Immortal :

To THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD:-
As the columns OF your valuable paper appear to
be open the discussion OF the immortality of the
soul, desire to avail myself Of the privilege OF say
ing few words in reply to your correspondent,
wv. H." In your last Sundays issue; not, indeed,
in refntatlon Of his Bible proofs to the reality Of
its doctrine of Immortality, but In regard to the
false idea forth at the close OF his article where
he says, That the soul rests In the place prepared
for 1t, while the BODY sleeps in the grave, awaiting
the glorious morn OF the resurrection when 1t shall
rise and be again Joined to the spirit, never more
to be separated for then death will be conquered,
and the body, the mortal, put on Immortality"
Now. here is where he places stumbling block in
the way of rational belief In the Immortality of
the soul. He still clings to the old idea OF resrs
recon OF the material body, the fallacy Of which is
proved by his own quotation from the sacred vol
ume, where 1t is said "Moses and Elias talked with
the Saviour at the TRANSPORTATION on the Mount"
Noses and Elias, then must have been in bodies Of
some sort, with all their faculties and capacities
about them, or they could not have been seen and
known. st. Paul declares that there Is natural
body and there Is spiritual bOdy-ls not Is to be.
The soul or spirit Is the man-his material body
forms no essential part OF hm as regards His real
selfhOOd, God Is q spirit, and man Is o spirit
created In His image and likeness. He Is
clothed with material substance, which we call the
ing him in time and space for a season. When by
reason OF age or accident this material body be-
comes OF no further use to him 1t dies and Is thrown
aside, like an outer garment, never to be resumed.
What we term death Is but an orderly step In our
existence designed from the beginning Man, as
was SAID above, is spirit; his spiritual nature is
the all OF his sellhOOd and Is indestructible. He
lives within the natural body as his earthly house,
and when he removes from 1t he leaves 1t forever.
All the known operations OF the Deity are gov
erned by eternally fixed laws We see this in all
that relates to the natural world. Is 1t not reason
able to conclude that there are analogous spiritual
laws which govern and control the mental spirit
ual wOrldY We see the dead natural body placed in
the grave. We know 1t mOuders away and its
various parts return to the material elements from
In Its original form after the space OF few years;
snd II man Is a spiritual being In human form, and
as such adapted to a spiritual world, what neces-
sttv Is there for reproduction OF his wOrnOut and
disspated material part, which was adapted only
to material world The resurrection OF the ma
for 1t would Of necessity be a recreation. And
what difflcuty here presents itself. In order
to be recognized, all these myrads OF
dead bodies must be reproduced In precisely
the condition In which they died; and old, de-
crepit man must be so resurreCted. An infant
an infant, and so on through all the variety OF hu-
man beings who have lived and died on this our
earth II the soul or spirit is not substantial en-
tity and In o human form, then what can 1t ~
Is 1t vapor, breath, an ethereal something, wit.
out shape or form II so then 1t is nothing and ~
no intelligence, and how can 1t enjoy or suffer wtcl
out reasoning powers, without brain and thought
W. H. must, therefore, either abandon the idea
that man Is immortal or that there Is resurrec-
ton OF the material body. The truth is, that what
we term death Is in reality resurrection, for the
and enters at upon the eternal life OF the spirit
4. II.