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Man's Preéminence. 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 “‘¢here zs nothing 
better for a man ¢han 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 
