LIVING SOULS. 
LL things were made by the Word of God. In this 
Word was life, spirit or energy. Without it was not 
anything made that was made. Hence, says Elihu, “the 
Spirit of God hath made me, and the dreath of the Almighty 
hath given me “/e;” or, as Moses testifies, “the Lord God 
formed man, the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of lives; and man became a Livinc SOUL. 
Now, if it be asked what the Scriptures define a living 
soul to be, the answer is a living natural, or animal body, 
whether of beasts, birds, fish or men. The phrase living 
creature is the exact synonyme of living soul. The words 
nephesh chayiah are in Hebrew the signs of the ideas ex- 
pressed by Moses, xephesh signifying creature, life, soul, or 
breathing frame from the verb dreathe, and chaytah, a noun 
from the verb ¢o live, of life. Nephesh chayiah is the genus 
which includes all species of living creatures. In the common 
version of the Scriptures, it is rendered “ving soul, and, there- 
fore, under this form of expression they speak of all flesh 
which breathes in air, earth and sea. 
From the evidence adduced a man then is merely a body 
of life in the sense of his being an animal or living creature— 
nephesh chaytah adam. Therefore, as a natural man, he has 
no preéminence over the creatures God has made. Moses 
makes no distinction between him and them, for he calls 
them all living souls, breathing the breath of lives. His 
language, literally rendered, says, “and God said, the waters 
shall produce abundantly sheretz chayiah nephesh the reptile 
living soul;” and again, “kal nephesh chayiah erameshat every 
