The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-12-04
HAS MAN A SOUL?
Workingman's Interesting Address at
 Y. M. c. 4.

Workingman's Interesting Address at Y. M. c. A.
 The mems meeting in the Foy audito- rum yesterday afternoon was address ed by Joseph Hall, a paperhanger of this city. The service was a novel one, in a way, it being an address by Iworkingman to workingmen on the sub- ject Has a. Man a Soul?" The service next Sunday will be held in the New Haven theater and will be addressed by Mrs. Mary l.. Conklin, of New York. These meetings are proving very inter- esting. The one next Sunday will be of highly interesting nature, it being the first one held in any of the theaters for several years past.
 MT. Halls address was in the shape of an answer to the arguments advanc- ed by the leading atheists of the times, and showed remarkable study along thoe lines. He said in part:
 'The reason for the declining of mor- al life is that there Is a general decline of faith. When a mans faith goes down he goes down, too. The mightiest power that we have in the universe Is an ideal. There is nothing great in the world but mind. There is a general wave of skepticism in the world to-day. I would rather grapple with a man who is either an atheist or a Christian than with a skeptic. The great trouble to- day is that we have a great deal if idealism, with no conviction back of 1t. A little modern sense would do us more good than modern science and modern learning, If a man has his ideal set on the top of some mountain he will at least climb. He will not go down.
 "As soon as a man believes that there is no such thing as human sold he De- comes an animal. Has man soul? There is no logic or reason in that ln- uuiry. It is nonsense. A man has not two personalities. The soul is his per- sonality. The soul is the man, and the
 man is the soul. The soul itself is ask ing whether it is @ soul or not. You cannot get out of your own personality. The reality is the spiritual side and not the physical, for matter knows nothing, fears nothing. No man would ever look at a. dead man to find g living soul. All knowledge is a knowledge of states or mind, states of conscience. It is inn possible for mind to come into contact with matter. The gulf between mlnd and matter is impossible
 ssTake all the animals of the universe and give them all the material of the world. and there is not reason enough among them to make an animal or stick. If you put a monkey-looKlng man and a manipulating monkey side bv side you could not tell which was the man or the monkey until you ln- ouired. They are physiologically and anatomically the, same. There IS no better proof that man is a living soul than that fact. If there be no physical difference wherein comes the difference? Nrhere is a difference between these two which is wider than the widest chasn- The money catches fieas and eats them, while the other controls the powers of the earth. climbs the mountain peaks and scars among the consultations ana mans them out on the table. where comes in the difference? The difference is on the spiritual side of man. It is the difference between man and living 4oul. Huxley says that man is nothing but a puppet drawn by a string Oh, what a string that is! What awful power pulls that string! If man is only chunk of mud the brain is only a chunk of mud, and what can you expect from a muddy brain but muddy logic? There is a spirit in man, said Solomon, and the inspiration of the Almighty gives 1t understanding. The spirit dominates matter"