’ “ = 
Man's Preéminence. 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 
