The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1885-10-22
THE SLEEP OF DEATH.
BY SAMUEL T. SPEAR, D. D.

| IHE SLEEf UE UEh1A H.
BY SAMUEL T. SPEAR, D. D.
Sleep is the natural and temporary
suspension of the minds intercourse with
the external world through the medium
of the senses. The fact that it is natural,
being recurrent at comparatively brief
periods, and needful for the recuperation
of exhausted power, distinguishes it
from that suspension which is produced
by fainting or apoplexy, or by blow so
violent as to obliterate all consciousness
for the time being. The fact that it is
temporary, and succeeded by wakefulness,
distinguishes it from that suspension
which is caused by the actual death of
the body. Neither the body nor the soul
is dead in mere sleep. The senses will
soon resume their usual functions, and
then the suspension will end. The soul
still remains in the body, and when the
senses awake its activity will reappear.
The sleeper, if his sleep be perfect, is
in the state of suspended consciousness,
without any mental activities which he
can remember. If, however, the sleep
be not perfect, he may be dreamer,
recalling the elements of his walking
knowledge while in the state ofsleep, and
passing, it may be, through what seem to
be long processes of thought. Simple
dreams are nothing but the recurrence
during sleep of ideas acquired when we
were awake; and the fact that we have
dreams suggests that the soul is not abso.
lutely dependent upon the body, and
might be separated therefrom altogether,
and yet retain its existence and activity.
Sleep is in some respects analogous to
death !; and hence it is used in the Bible
in the sense of death. "Lighten mine
eyes," says the Psalmist, "lest l sleep the
sleep of DEATH" In regard to Lazarus,
who had died, and whom Jesus intended
to restore to life, the great miracle, worker
said: ~ 60 that I may awake him out
of Sleep" Job says: "For now l shall
81 .ep in the dust, and thou shalt seek me
in the morning, but I shall not be-" God
said to Moses: "Behold, thou shalt
sleep with thy fathers" Dauiel predicts
the coming time when tney THAT sleep
in the dust of the earth shall awake"
The martyr Stephen, after praying for
his murderers, "fell asleep" The term
sleep, as used in these passages, means
death. The analogy between sleep and
death justi6es the application of the
same term to both.
We hence speak of the sleep of death,
of the sleep of the grave, and of death
as the long sleep. The dead, whether
buried or unburied, are asleep, in the
sense that their spirits no longer hold
intercourse with the living or with the
material world through the medium Of
the bodies they once inhabited. Their
spirits are not in those bodies, as they
once were, and neither control them nor
receive impressions through them. They
are asleep to survivors, and can not be
awakened therefrom. We may speak to
them, but they will not hear.
We may press their cold and lifeless
cheeks with the kiss of affection, but they
will not feel it. We may visit the spot
where their ashes lie, but they will not
know that we are there. The summers
heat aud the winters blast are the same
to them. The earthquakes shock will
not disturb their slumber. No merely
natural cause can awaken them. Their
eyes and ears are closed in death, to see
no more and hear no more. Sensibility
has fled from their bodies; and what
happens in this world makes no impress
ion upon them through these bodies.
Whole families may, as to their bodies,
lie side by side in the same cemetery
but no recoguitions will pass between
them. They are alike sleeping the sleep
of death. Our familiarity with these
facts takes away their impressiveness.
They come home to the living only when
death strikes a cherished friend, and con.
signs that friend to the long sleep. Then
they startle the soul as if never heard or
thought of before. Then the sleep of
death has meaning, and the survivor
awakes to its import.
Does the sleep of death, SO fatal to all
the activities, and even the existence of
the body as an organized structure, ope-
rate in like manner upon the soul? 1t
is true that the soul does not, after death,
give any signs of its continued existence
III and through the body that has died.
1t does not, however, follow from this
fact that the soul has died also, or that it
has passed into an unconscious and Who'll
" inactive state. We have no evidence
from experience, and no proof from any
other source, that the death of the body
entails this result, even for moment.
The soul, for aught that appears in death
as known to us, may simply then leave
the body, and go right on with the activ-
tiles of its intellectual and spirit-life, as
perfectly, yea, more perfectly, than when
it was confined to and limited by body
of flesh and blood. That this is the fact
is the view which the Bible sustains.
Our Saviour, in his argument with the
Sadducees, who were the materialists of
that age, assumed and affirmed that
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though they
had for centuries been dead as to their
bodies, were still living and consciously
active as to their souls. Moses and Elias,
though they had long been dead, met the
Saviour and conversed with him on the
Mount of TRANSPORTATION. Lazarus and
the rich man alike die; and the one is
carried BY angels into Abraham's bosom,
and the other awakes in hell, being in
torment. Both are set before us as still
living and conscious after death. To the
penitent thief on the cross it was prom
ised that he should be with Jesus in Par
adise; and that, too, on the very day in
which both died. The souls of dead men
came back to their bodies when Jesus
restored life to the latter; and, at his
resurrection, the souls which had inhabi-
ted many bodies of dead saints were
returned to those bodies, and in the same
event into the holy city and appeared
unto many" Paul desired to depart and
to be with Christ. He thought of his
home in the body as an absence from the
Lord, and was willing to be absent from
the body that he might be present with
the Lord. He had no idea that death
would extinguish his mental life, or for
moment suspend its activity. He expec.
ted at death to quit the body, and pass
into the personal presence of Christ, in
a sense not possible to him while in the
body; aud on this subject we can do no
better than to initiate his life, and doing
this, then in thought initiate his expecta.
ton.
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