without deranging a thought of the indwelling and undying spirit. And so of the entire body. It is not the soul or any part of it, and may waste and be dissolved without the extinction of that other and higher nature, which is spiritual, indestructible and immortal. As the swift-winged arrow may be speeding on its way, though the bow from which it is sent may be snapped and ruined, and as the light of the fixed stars might continue to shoot on through space for ages, though the stars themselves were suddenly annihilated, so the life of the soul will go on in the future forever, though the body from which it springs at death has crumbled back to dust.

CHAPTER XIII.

ARGUMENT DRAWN FROM THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER.

Ir has generally been assumed by those who deny the immortality of the soul, that annihilation is even more natural than creation. How that may be we care not to inquire. Neither are we disposed to deny that so far as power to effect the result is concerned, God could annihilate the entire universe in a moment of time. But so far as we have any light upon the subject, instead of its being even an occasional event, it seems to be established as a law of nature, that nothing that is once launched into being shall ever go out of existence.

I. Natural philosophy teaches us that of all this vast creation no substance has yet been found, however subtle or refined, which man has power to annihilate, or put utterly out of being. It may be a hailstone or a drop of water, and we may freeze it, or heat it to steam, or decompose it into its elementary gases, and explode it; or evaporate it; but it still exists, every atom of it; and disperse or change its elements as we may, they will forever defy all efforts at their annihilation. And so of every substance, solid or fluid, animal, mineral, or vegetable,

through the whole realm of nature. Annihilation is a name for what never yet occurred to matter, and

never can.

"A mass of atoms may be separated and changed from one form to another by chemical and mechanical forces, but not one of them can ever be lost; for in all cases where a body is apparently destroyed, it can be shown experimentally that the parts are only separated, and can be collected again. Thus, when wood is burned in the fire, it appears to be annihilated; but if we collect the products—the smoke and ashes, we shall find the same quantity in weight that existed in the wood. In fact, we shall find a larger amount of matter than was originally contained in the wood, owing to the oxygen of the air which has combined with the wood in the process of combustion.

"When gunpowder is exploded, the products may all be collected again. The same is found true in every case where matter changes its form or composition. We know that the material atoms of our own bodies are constantly changing, but not one of them is ever annihilated. That atom of matter which was struck from its kindred' particles ages since, may have passed through many forms, solid, liquid, and gaseous, perhaps through animal and vegetable bodies, before it entered the kernel of grain, and became a portion of our own system; and there are many changes which it will undergo there before it shall be cast out into the air as pure as at first, to enter other forms and nourish other systems. Matter is thus ever changing, but never destroyed." *

*Gray's Elements of Natural Philosophy, pp. 22, 23.

Here, then, is a distinct intimation of a great law in nature herself, that change is not extinction of being; and therefore that death may not be the last of man.

II. The Holy Scriptures teach the same philosophy, "Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him."

"It shall be forever"-shall always exist. " Nothing can be put to it." A congress of archangels could not add a pebble to the universe. "Nor anything taken from it." All the intelligent universe, God excepted, could not annihilate a grain of sand. "And God doeth it that men should fear before him." This fixedness of the material creation is ordained that we, knowing that whatever God launches into being by his creative fiat, must exist forever, may understand our own immortal destination, and may fear to provoke the unending displeasure of the Almighty.

III. Such being the fact in the material world, namely, that so far as we have knowledge nothing can be annihilated, the advocate of the non-existence of souls after the change of death, reasons against the undeniable and stubborn fact, that all philosophy is against him. Every analogy of nature is a protest against his cold and cheerless creed. In talking of "annihilation," he talks of that which has never yet occurred even to a grain of sand; and employs a name which represents nothing but an imaginary nonentity.*

* Some writer, perhaps Samuel Drew the metaphysician, coined the word zamiff to represent an imaginary something as yet unknown, which should be neither matter nor spirit. The term annihilation has an analogous import; as it is used to represent an imaginary event that never did occur and never can.

IV. In contemplating this characteristic of the material world, we should not forget that it applies as well to the elements of which our bodies are composed, as to any other.

Corruption, closely noted, is but a dissolving of the parts.

The parts remain, and nothing lost, to build a better whole.

The oxygen, and iron, and lime, and phosphorus that enter into the composition of our bodies, are to exist forever. Why, then, should the spirit cease to be?

And

But it may be replied that the body no longer exists as a body. We grant it; but it exists as matter, and still retains all its original attributes and capabilities as such, and may live again in other forms and under other auspices from age to age. if the same be conceded in regard to the essence of the soul, notwithstanding failing powers and perhaps a seeming parenthesis of unconscious being just before death, we shall still have an immortality with all our powers as spirits unimpaired and vigorous forever.

We have thus shown that so far as we can learn from all observation and experience, matter is indestructible; and that it is a law of the universe that whatever is once launched into being shall, in one form or another, exist forever.

Now if this be true of matter much more of mind, unless it can be shown that mind is inferior to and more perishable than matter. If it were granted, even, that the soul is a material substance, its endless. existence would be a legitimate inference from the indestructibility of matter. And in proportion as the soul is found superior to matter, is the inference strengthened that she might survive, though matter should cease to exist.