Man's Preeminence. 473 



to look forward to such a future, a future from which neither 

 wisdom, nor virtue, nor piety could save him, and where there 

 is nothing but an eternity of gloom, remorse and hopeless 

 despondency. Sad as this picture is, yet it is far brighter 

 than that of the Psalmist, the Preacher, or Job. Those who 

 have passed into the world of spirits still retain their indi- 

 viduality after death, being distinguished in the spirit as they 

 had been in the flesh. Memory survives the body's death. 

 Naught of their earthly career is forgotten. They still have 

 an interest in their friends that remain in the body whom 

 they love, and over whose well-being they unceasingly 

 watch. No such consolation, as has been described, exists 

 in the future state of man if the passages of Scripture that 

 have been quoted are taken in a literal sense. Man, in that 

 event, passes at death into a place of darkness, forgetfulness 

 and silence, where there is no work, nor device, nor knowl- 

 edge, nor wisdom, and where even his very thoughts perish. 

 No other interpretation, if taken literally, can be put upon 

 them, for the statements are too explicit to be explained 

 away or softened. 



In the outward sense of their writings the Psalmist, 

 Job and the Preacher are on an equality with Horace in 

 their absolute unbelief in a future existence, and in a 

 consequent desire to snatch what fleeting pleasures they 

 can from earth before the inexorable law of fate consigns 

 them to dark oblivion. Startling as it may seem to compare 

 the teachings of a Greek idolater and of a Latin Epicurean 

 heathen with those of sacred writers, yet it is still more start- 

 ling to show that the teachings of the Epicurean sensualist 

 are not a whit wiser than those of the Scriptural writer, while 

 those of the Greek poet are very much better. Such, how- 

 ever, is the fact, and, if we are to be bound by the literal inter- 

 pretatation of the Scriptures, there is no possibility of deny- 

 ing it without doing violence to reason and common-sense. 



We are now brought face to face with the point previously 

 mentioned. Does the authorized version give a full and 



