Man's Preeminence. 477 



chapter, yet by no manner of interpretation can this 

 specialized text be made to mean that beasts are anni- 

 hilated after death, while men rise again and soar above 

 earthly things to honor and glory. Ironically the writer 

 assumes in it that his readers do not know the difference 

 between the spirit of man and that of beast, and, reasoning 

 from that position, advises them that " there is nothing- 

 better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that 

 he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor." 



From what has been shown, it is evident that the passage 

 from Psalms does not even contain the idea of annihilation 

 as regards beasts, and that the one from Ecclesiastes is 

 entirely misapprehended. That they have no bearing upon 

 the subject must now be manifest. We cannot, therefore, 

 resist the conclusion that the Scriptures do not deny future 

 life to the inferior animals. 



This admission gives courage for a step still further 

 forward. Man's latest achievement is to conceive that all 

 existence is a unit. One spirit pervades the whole natural 

 world, an emanation from the Spirit of Him who sitteth 

 enthroned in the Eternal Heavens, and who not only is, as 

 Moses declares, " God of the spirits of all flesh," but God 

 of the spirits of all animate nature. We cannot divorce the 

 two great kingdoms of nature. If there is a futurity of 

 existence for man, whom we are told was " made a little 

 lower than the angels," but who in these latter days seems 

 to have deteriorated, and who in thousands of instances 

 displays a character far less noble and honorable than that 

 of the dog which he kennels and feeds, then there must be 

 for the so-called brute, the companion of his joys and his 

 sorrows. If for beast, bird, reptile, fish and insect, and none 

 can be so foolish in the face of the most indubitable evidence 

 to deny it, then there must be for tree, shrub and flower, 

 for God, who is infinite in love, mercy and charity, would 

 not be God if solely concerned with the future of the 

 smallest fractional part of His children. Man is psychically 



