fore indestructible. Granted. But this only proves that the soul, quod being, will never cease; the same may be said of every particle of matter. When the body is destroyed the particles are not destroyed; they go into new relations; what was once wheat or grain is now a man, and what was once a man is now some animal" all flesh is grass," but does this proverb prove that each particle of matter enjoys immortality? The question is, whether the soul in its future state will continue not merely to be, but to live. The question is not concerning persistence in being, but concerning future life. The metaphysical argument proves nothing in relation to immortality. The soul lives now in the body, is dependent upon the body for its communion with outward nature, it cannot learn or know anything of the visible world except through the medium of the senses, and without the cunning organization of the ear, human speech and the communion of man with man, and therefore, human sympathies, and, in short, human life, would be impossible. Who does not know the influence of spiritous liquor, tobacco, and opium, upon the memory? Do these material agents act directly on the soul? Evidently not; but they act on the body, and this weakening of the memory by material agents operating on the body shows us that the soul is dependent, for the continuance of the exercise of memory and imagination, to a certain extent, upon its connection with the body. Who shall she answers, I am conscious that they never happened." This is a specimen of the argument from consciousness. The fact is, our friends really mean, when they say they are conscious of the reality of a fact concerning which they have no certain knowledge, that their belief in that direction is strong. But strong belief is no valid philosophical argument; for many false opinions have been firmly held, and all creeds, the false as well as the true, count their martyrs who have sealed their faith in their blood. For ourselves, we know of no good argument for the immortality of the soul, except the one so philosophically set forth by our Saviour and the Apostle Paul. But this will lead us perhaps too far into the dark region of theological controversy. We will, however, say a few words in relation to the metaphysics of the Christian doctrine of immortality, and, in so doing, we shall be careful to trespass on the limits of no sect-to say nothing which could justly be condemned by an intelligent man of any religious denomination. The Hindoo theologians say that man's life is generated from the bread he eats: Moses gives a nobler expression to this thought, saying, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." What is Life? We do not conceive it necessary to answer this question, although we think it one by no means difficult to answer. The manner in which life is sustained is the question which now concerns us. We are not upon the problem of the nature of life, but upon that of immortality, the continuance of life. say, with the metaphysical argument only to sustain him, that the soul, on its separation from the body does not enter the Abyss, does not enter the potential A man lives a sort of vegetable life, a life state? Is there any life there, any im- similar to that of the plants, according to mortality in the Abyss, which men would which the involuntary functions, such as desire? Again, there is the Platonic the circulation of the blood, the action of argument, which goes on the ground the stomach, are performed. He lives that man existed in some celestial region also a sort of animal life, a life similar to before he was born of a woman. But that of the brutes, according to which he this fact must be made good before it can gratifies his animal passions, and lives in be used in any argument; this we believe the enjoyment of sensual pleasures. He has never yet been done. Then comes lives also a social life, which he has in the argument from consciousness. Some common with other men and women, acsay they are conscious they will live cording to which he gratifies the tendenhereafter. Consciousness, we believe, cies proper to man. This analysis is ingives us knowledge concerning the im- complete, and, in fact, altogether erronemediate operations of our own minds, ous; for man has naturally but one life, and concerning these only. The argu. which is human life; yet these distincment from consciousness, is, therefore, tions will enable us to express our not absurd, but ridiculous. We know a thought more clearly. Man's life is lady who denies the Christian miracles, sustained by the bread he eats. A plant and when asked why she denies them, deprived of light, air, and moisture, dies; in like manner a man, deprived of the same, dies, for his physical system cannot bear up under the privation. Now light, air and moisture are the bread which the plant eats. An animal deprived of the means of living according to the nature of animals, dies, or if he continues to live, it will be a sort of dumb life, like that of a vegetable: so it is with man. These means of gratifying the natural tendencies, are the bread which the animal eats to sustain the life peculiar to animals. A man deprived of society dies to all social life, and becomes a mere brute. Take, for example, those men who have become idiotic in solitary confinement: some indeed hold out longer than others, but let the confinement be continued, and human nature cannot resist it. Now society is the bread which a man eats to sustain his social life. It is evident, therefore, that man is dependent for the continuance of his life upon something which is not himself. He cannot always have food given him. There is no life in the Abyss where all relations have vanished; there is no life in pure essence, but only in existence. The true question then is, What shall prevent man, on the dissolution of the body, from going back into the Abyss? What shall man do to inherit, not continuance of being, but eternal life? If nourishment be withdrawn, a man must die to all those powers which are deprived of nourishment. But the body, as we have seen, is the means whereby man assimilates to himself this various nourishment. When, therefore, this earthly tabernacle is withdrawn, it is to be feared that man dies altogether, for the means whereby he assimilated the nourishment of his life is withdrawn. The man, therefore, who has no life higher than that which is nourished by the things of this world, has no true and well-grounded hope of immortality; for he will one day be withdrawn from this world, and then there will no longer be any nourishment for him. The question again recurs, What then must we do in order to inherit eternal life? Evidently we must, at once, commence to live a life dependent upon nothing in this present perishing world; we must begin to feed immediately, that is, without the intervention of the body, on something altogether independent of sensible things; in other words, we must begin to live, not by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God. But where is this spiritual bread? where is this nourishment altogether independent of things which perish? where is this nourishment which the soul can eat without the intervention of the body? Our Saviour says, "I am the bread of life. . . . If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." But mark! these words have a mystical meaning. "It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words which I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." In order now that Christ should be able to give nourishment to those that live in him, so that they who are in him may have eternal life, three things are necessary: 1st. That he himself should have attained to eternal life; 2d. That he should have ascended above all perishable and transitory things; 3d. That his disciples may live in him without the intervention of the body. Let us examine these separately. 1st. Our Saviour himself describes his qualifications, so far as his own attainment of eternal life is concerned. "As the living Father hath sent me, (he says,) and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.” 2d. If it can be proved against Strauss and his followers, and against the Rationalists, that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Father on high, the second condition is abundantly fulfilled. The reader must bear in mind that we confine ourselves purposely to the philosophy of immortality, that we do not intend to trench upon theological ground in any direction, and that we express no opinion whatever as to the validity or non-validity of any fact. 3d. If it can be proved, from the experience of private Christians, that there is an immediate relation between Christ and the individual soul, the third condition also is abundantly fulfilled. The soul must be in constant relation with some nourishment, and it will live according to the nature of that nourishment. If the nourishment be material, the man will live a natural and perishable life; if it be spiritual, he will live a spiritual life. But if man, while living a natural life, lives a spiritual life also, and that spiritual life be the immediate, direct com munion of the soul with something transcending all perishable things, the spiritual life will continue to subsist, though the body and the nourishment of the natural man both enter the Abyss, both enter into mere potential existence. The Christian argument appears to be this: Our Lord represents himself as living spiritually, and yet literally, upon God as his nourishment; for the passage quoted is connected with those relating to the bread of life. We quote the text again: "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." Here Christ is represented as living on (by) the Father, and his disciples as living, in a like manner, upon him. His disciples are represented as living spiritually, and yet literally, upon him as the nourishment of their souls-" so he that eateth me," &c. Some analogies to this method of obtaining life by nourishment, may be found in the teachings of Zoroaster. It was the living Father that sent Christ; that is, the self-living Father, "who alone hath immortality" in himself, as St. Paul says. But Christ lived in God, so that his life was in two imperishable things-his soul, which was the vital agent, and the Father, who was the nourishment of his soul. Our Lord, therefore, was in communion, or relation, with something which could never cease from actual existence; and, although the world should enter the abyss, and his life as far as the world was concerned should cease, for want of nourishment, his life which was in God could never cease. We are saved therefore in Christ, "not by the law of a carnal commandment, but by the power of an endless life." But whosoever eats our Lord spiritually, even he shall live by that same nourishment. This is clear, for the soul itself is imperishable; this can be proved by the metaphysical argument already noticed, although that argument is impotent in relation to the continuance of life. The soul of man is imperishable, (quoad being,) and Christ, the nourishment of the soul, is imperishable also, by reason of his connection with the Father; the life, therefore, between two imperishable things, is also imperishable. He that believeth on me, (saith our Lord,) though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth on me shall never die." It is in this way that we explain the saying of the Saviour, "Because I live, ye shall live also; and at that day, ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you;" and also the passage in the writings of Paul, “Your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory;" and scores of other passages which want of space compels us to omit. But the Oriental doctrine in no way resembles this. The Christian doctrine gives a true continuance of life in actual relations; but the Oriental theory makes the future state of the soul to consist in either, 1st. The return of the soul into the present forms of existence, in the bodies of men or animals, or, 2d. A total absorption into the abyss. The first condition, or that of transmigration, fills the mind with terror; and it is the chief design of the Hindoo theology to furnish some means whereby it may be avoided. We read, in the Laws of Menû, in relation to this doctrine: "Action, either verbal, mental, or corporeal, bears good or evil fruit, as itself is good or evil; and from the actions of men proceed their various transmigrations in the highest, the mean, and the lowest de gree. For sinful acts mostly corporeal, a man shall assume after death a vegetable or mineral form; for such acts mostly verbal, the form of a bird or beast; for acts mostly mental, the lowest of human conditions... By the vital souls of those men, who have committed sins in the body reduced to ashes, (it was the custom to burn dead bodies,) another body composed of nerves with five sensations, in order to be susceptible to torment, shall certainly be assumed after death. "And, being intimately united with those minute nervous particles, according to their distribution, they shall feel, in that new body, the pangs inflicted in each case by the sentence of YAMA. : ." But we are more interested in the other form of the doctrine, viz: the method of escape from this necessity of migrating from body to body. This is by a return into the abyss. A man must, in this world, crucify every affection, every tendency, and endeavor to be always in the state described in the quotation from Dupuis. When a man thus without affection comes to die, he has no particular character, or tendency, and therefore will not take any form, but will at once enter 6th of John. the potential state; in which indeed he now really is as far as existence in the body will permit. This reëntrance into the potential state is annihilation rather than immortality. When the soul distinguishes itself from nature, it destroys, as far as in it lies, its actual relations, and thus commences to disentangle itself from those things which tend to necessitate a return. Thus the soul, when it is known, that is, distinguished from visible nature, and from actual relations, does not return. Kreeshna is the Abyss, and the highest state of future happiness, held out by the Bhagvat Geeta, consists in a return into Kreeshna. In this state of essence without existence, we are indeed free from the danger of migration, for we are thenceforth free from all relations whatever; but no future life is compatible with such an order of being. We should like to know how our Transcendentalists answer the objections brought against the doctrine of the Bhagvat Geeta. Their whole desire is to reënter into themselves, to be absolved from all dependency upon anything which is not themselves. How do they escape the Abyss? How do they aviod a return into Kreeshna, into "the Supreme Abode?" Their only argument for immortality is the metaphysical one, derived from the fact of the soul's simplicity; but this proves only that the soul's being is imperishable, it proves nothing in relation to a future life. "He, O Arjoon, (says Kreeshna,) who, from conviction, acknowledges my divine birth and actions to be even so, doth not upon his quitting his mortal frame, enter into another, for he entereth into me. Those men of regulated lives, whose sins are done away, being freed from the fascination arising from contending passions, enjoy me. At the end of time, he, who having abandoned his mortal frame, departeth, thinking only of me, without doubt, goeth unto me; or else (if he think not of me, but of other things) whatever nature he shall thus call upon at the end of life, when he shall quit his mortal frame, he shall go into it (transmigrate.)" These Oriental doctrines have in other respects a great analogy with the truths of Christianity; for example, the doctrine of regeneration is well known in the East. Our Lord says: "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." The following passage from the Bhagvat Geeta has at least a verbal resemblance to this saying: "They who serve me with adoration (it is Kreeshna that speaks,) I am in them, and they in me." But what practical conclusion can we draw from the considerations, brought to view in this article? For it is without doubt unbecoming in philosophers, which we take both ourselves and our readers to be, to waste so much paper, ink, time, and nervous fluid, on a question of history, and mere question of curiosity. What practical conclusion can we draw? It seems to us that we may be justified in concluding that the theory of the future existence of the soul, independent of any body, spiritual or material, is unphilosophical, and unworthy of being believed by any well instructed man. The Scriptures teach the resurection of a body, not the natural body, indeed, but a spiritual body. "It is sown a natural body (says St. Paul); it is raised a spiritual body." What in fact is meant by this term body? A thing producing certain effects upon us, as hardness, weight, existence, color, &c. Abstract these qualities, or modes of activity, from the particular body, and what remains? Evidently nothing but the potential existence of that same body. Now the soul, in order to communion with other souls, must have some mode of activity, and some means of recognizing the activities of other souls; that is, again in a body, either spiritual that is, it must exist in actual relations, or material-it must not have entered the Abyss. For the existence of the body, as we have seen, consists in these actual relations; as, for example, color, hardness, weight, &c., in the case of material bodies. As for this term spiritual body, its meaning is not altogether plain; it probably signifies a body having a real existence, but an existence entirely different from any with which we are now acquainted. We would not be misunder stood; we do not believe the soul to be the substance of the body. We hold that the soul and body are distinct, though not separate; at some future time, we may, perhaps, endeavor to explain the nature of their union. A TALK ABOUT BIRDS. We love song-birds with a singular affection. Out of the bottom of our heart we love them for of all God's creatures, except a clear-eyed, innocent child, they have been to us a wonder and a miracle. We never could get done wondering to hear them sing. It sounds so strange to us that anything could be happy enough to sing but angels and young girls! Singing, when we come to think of it, seems to be properly the language of a deathless being the right form in which the exultings of an Immortal should be poured among the waves of shoreless sound. That a sweet sound should ever cease to be, appears to us unnatural--at least unpoetical--for, let its vibrations once begin, though they may soon die to our gross sense, must they not go widening, circling on, stinging the sense of myriad other lives with a mysterious pleasantness, (such as will overcome us in a wood upon an April day,) until the uttermost bound of our poor space he past, and yet the large circumference go spread and spreading tremulous among the girdling stars? It may be so for all we can tell! If it be so, how quaint it is to hear these little feathered creatures, from some frail sprig-with such unconscious earnestness gushing out strains that are to chime the solemn dance of systems! Mystery is all around us. Who knows but that these things be? Whether or no, it is a marvelous reality to hear birds singing. If you look at them while they do it, with their upturned bills, their rapt, softened, half-closed eyes, their bodies quivering in the ecstatic travail-you cannot but feel in reverential mood, and hear your own rebuked heart whispering "let us pray!" What! When their shrill, melodious clamorings go up with the mists before the sun, and make his coming over earth to be with light in music, are they not chaunting matins to the God of all? When he hastens to decline, and from the spires of tree-tops everywhere the Thrush and Robin sing a low-voiced hymn-is it not a vesper-symphonie of thanks? And when, in the deep night, the Oriole, in dreamy twitterings, and the Mocking-bird, in clear, triumphing notes, stir the dark shadows of the cold, grey moon to the wild pulsing of unmeasured chords-is it not a worship fitting to that mystic time? Verily, they symbol to us a spiritual and a holier life! The purpose of their being is in prayer and praise, just as they say it is with Angels. They do not taste the fruits of earth, and revel in the warm kisses of the day, unthankfully; but when their little hearts-forever drinking love-fill up to the brim, they let their cadent fullness go towards heaven. They sing when they have eaten-they sing when they have drunk-while they are waking, music always trembles at their breasts-they pay back the caressing sun in sweetness-and when they sleep. and the shining beams are showered silently and pale, down from the bosom of the darkness over them, their dreams break out in momentary song. They take the berry, flushing underneath green leaves, and the sense of hunger is relieved. So when they snatch the earth-worm-stirring unusually the grass blades of the sward beneath themfrom its slimy hole, the bare appetite is soothed. Theirs is no sodden gormandie, snch as we human brutes indulge, that would doze and snooze away the precious hours. No; this food with them is but the "provender of praise ;" and for every mite and fragment of the manna of the great Dispenser" they do obeisance in thanksgiving. Beautiful lesson, is it not, to us, a stiff-necked and ungrateful generation? We eat to live, that we may eat again. They eat that they may make merry before the Lord, and fill his outer temples with the sounds of love! One of the most touching-and what certainly should be one of the most significant objects known to us, is afforded in the habitual gesture of these little creatures while they drink. Think of a thin rivulet by the meadow-side playing at bo-peep with the sun beneath the thickets-and so clear withal, that every stem, jagged limb, or crooked, leaf-weighed bough, lies boldly shadowed on its pale sand, or over its white pebbles, like moon-shades on the snow-except that these are tremulous. Then think of the singing throng who have been anticking and carrolling all the morning upon the weed and clovertops, out under the sun-coming into that shady place about "the sweltering time o' day," to cool their pipes. How eagerly' they come flitting in, with panting, open |