582 



NATURE AND DURATION OF THE SOUL. 



—and tread a& thou wilt the flowery paths of indulgence and pleasure ; 

 " but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judg- 

 ment." There is an equal point, a keen and forcible moral in both, ad- 

 dresses, and which could not fail to strike the heart of those to wAom 

 they were respectively delivered. 



It has been said by some writers that the judgment here referred to re- 

 lates to the present world, and must be so mterpreted to avoid the self-con- 

 tradiction I have just adverted to. But the wisdom of Solomon stands in 

 no need of the feeble and rushlight illumination of such commentators ; nor 

 could it ever be so said by any critic who has diligently attended to the 

 mixed language of Solomon's diction, or rather to the Arabisms he so fre- 

 quently indulges in ; and who, from this and various other sources, has 

 traced out that his early studies must have been passed in Arabia, or under 

 the superintendence of Arabian tutors ; and who at the same time calls to 

 mind that the Idumasan cities of Dedan and Teman had the same classical 

 character at Jerusalem that the cities of Athens and Corinth had at Rome. 



But are we still abandoned to the same unfixed and shadowy evidence, 

 with just hght enough to kindle the hope of immortality, and darkness 

 enough to strangle it the moment it is born ? Beset as the world is at all 

 times with physical arid moral evils, and doubly beset as it is at present ; 

 while virtue, patriotism, and piety are bleeding at every pore ; while the 

 sweet influences of the heavens seem turned to bitterness, the natural con- 

 stellations of the zodiac to have been pulled down from their high abodes, 

 and vice, tyranny, and atheism to have usurped their places, and from their 

 respective ascendants, to be breathing mildew and pestilence ov6r the pale 

 face of the astonished earth, ^ is it to the worn-out traces of tradition, or the 

 dubious fancies of philosophy, that this important doctrine is alone in- 

 trusted ?— a doctrine not more vital to the hopes of man than to the justice 

 of the Deity ? — No ; the fulness of the times has at length arrived : the veil 

 of separation is drawn aside ; the 'nighty and mysterious truth is published 

 by a voice from heaven ; it is engraved on pages of adamant, and attested 

 by the affirmation of the godhead. It tells us, in words that cannot he, 

 that the soul is immortal from its birth ; that the strong and inextinguish- 

 able desire we feel of future being is the true and natural impulse of a high- 

 born and inextinguishable principle : and that the blow which prostrates 

 the body and imprisons it in the grave, gives pinions to the soaring spirit 

 and crowns it with freedom and triumph But this is not all : it tells us 

 too that gross matter itself is not necessarily corruptible : that the freedom 

 and triumph of the soul shall hereafter be extended to the body ; that this 

 corruptible shall put on incorruption, this mortal immortality, and a glo- 

 rious and beatified reunion succeed. By what means such reunion is to 

 be accomphshed, or why such separation should be necessary, we know 

 not, — for we know not how the union was produced at first. They are 

 mysteries that yet remain locked up in the bosom of the great Creator; 

 and are as inscrutable to the sage as to the savage, to the philosopher as 

 to the schoolboy ; they are left, and perhaps purposely, to make a mock 

 at all human science ; and, while they form the groundwork of man's fu- 

 ture happiness, forcibly to point out to him that his proper path to it is 

 through the gate of humihty. 



* This lecture w^is delivered during the period of the French Revolution. 



