with me in Paradise," a clear inference is conveyed that his soul was to exist antecedently to the judgment. The saints of this earth who have left their bodies, are living with Lazarus and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They are of the family of God; and when the Son of God had gained his victory over sin, and the thief had cast off his earthly garments, they were received by this whole family in the vesture of righteousness: the former simply in a shadow of his glory-the latter as a pure and incorruptible spirit, the fulness of which will never fade, but increase in brightness and lustre. PHRENOLOGIST. Of all philosophy that is the weakest which throws a doubt on the immortality of that principle in man which instinctively looks forward to eternity, when a perverted reason is not in operation to subdue it. Many philoso phers have attempted to reason away the idea of immortality-men, whose profound intellects should have taught them how to appreciate the inspired word, and to reckon upon death as a gain. Dryden truly says "Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars "To lonely, weary, wandering travellers "Is reason to the soul :-and as on high "Not light as here; so reason's glimmering ray, "But guide us upward to a better day. "When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere, "So dies, and so dissolves,-in supernatural light." The Scriptures speak of the insufficiency of reason. They utter a warning voice to every traveller, beseeching him to receive in humility and faith the mysteries of God and redemption, which no intellect can comprehend, rather than trust entirely to reason, the most dangerous quality of man when put in competition with revelation. STEWART. Reason, however, is not denied to man in another state-only its perverting purposes, its untoward inclinations. There the mathematician is solving his problems, and the astronomer his celestial mysteries. The sage of antiquity, as well as the learned modern, walks in his own peculiar path, that which he had struck out and pursued while in the flesh. PHRENOLOGIST. This is a delightful idea-that those lawful pursuits which engrossed the higher faculties of man during his terrestrial life, are the surest mediums of happiness in another. There, however, life becomes more pure, more unalloyed, more elevated, such as we cannot conceive in this mortal state. To think of meeting such philosophers as Plato, Newton, and Galileo, and poets like Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton, and moralists like Socrates, Melancthon, and Johnson, revelling in full luxuriance of thought, and bringing, in some measure, their sublime imaginings and profound reasonings to the level of the weaker apprehension, enhances, in a great degree, the idea one entertains of the bliss of a future state. All earthly enjoyments are transient and weak in comparison with the pleasures you enjoy. The poet, in referring to the things of earth, asks, "Ah! what is Pleasure, but a bubble broke? "And what is Time, but as a transient stream? "And what is Hope-a spark o'erwhelm'd with smoke? "And what Affection, but a troubled dream?" STEWART. I say not whom you would meet; but be assured that he who cultivates his mind to the greatest advantage in philosophy, in morals, or in poetry, as well as in religion, enjoys in addition that which the mere religionist enjoys. Man carries his understanding and imagination with him; and it would be folly to suppose that, because he had entered upon an eternal state, they were to sink or rise, with the view of being brought to one common standard. PHRENOLOGIST. If it were not for the advantages which a noble and enlightened intellect would derive in eternity, I should be inclined to dispute its utility so far, in particular, as the happiness of the individual in possession of it may be concerned. If such high endowments of mind prevail without religion, they are apt to be turned to purposes on which some prohibition has been laid either by God, government, or the rules of society. More than this, they often lead to petulance, to contentions, to ambitions, and envyings, totally at variance with that sobriety of mind which lesser endowments ensure. If, again, they exist with religion, the wretched and deluded state of the world must be a subject of consideration that carries with it any thing but consolation to the human breast; and the doubt and fears of such a mind in regard to the attainment of pardon from an offended God, are usually so strong as to render that assurance in which the weaker intellect reposes, and finds relief and comfort, of so fragile and problematical a texture, as to detract from the happiness it would otherwise enjoy. STEWART. In this you are perfectly right. Intellect, of itself, does not so much as lead to that probity which its own elevation ought to ensure. Yet we could not, on peril of being deemed lax in our opinions and views, have it supposed that high endowments are undesirable. They should be coveted if only for the advantages which a proper direction of them may lead to: they should be prized and appreciated when possessed, as talents entrusted to man for the advancement of some objects connected with the economy of Divine grace. Whatever relates to mind must excite a permanent interest. It was observed by Hume," that reputation founded on philosophy and science passes away with the revolutions of human opinion; but that to record or select the phenomena of human nature creates an interest with the species itself." PHRENOLOGIST. Even the fame which intellect secures may, in the opinion of an eminent writer, follow us to another world. Speaking of the desire of fame which, he says, " is so universal, and seems to be so instinctive in our nature, and operates so powerfully to do good when it seeks its object through laudable pursuits-that it is not a chimerical possibility that it may be something more to us than a voice which we cannot hear, or than a breath which evaporates as it is uttered;" he adds, "the reputation which we attain during this life may follow our being wherever that may be situated hereafter, with all its momentous consequences, creating benefit and pleasure to us there, whenever it has arisen from what piety and virtue sanction and perpetuate here; but causing us per *" sonal and sentient evil and disgrace in our future abode, if it has sprung from actions, writings, or character which have been repugnant to moral reason, to human welfare, or to religious truth. It is the soundest inference to believe that all fame will be an unceasing companion to its possessor, for good or for evil, as long as the spirit shall exist any where in conscious sensitivity.* This view may not meet with the ready acquiescence of the multitude; for how must it be with those persons over whose memory clouds of calumny as well as sunshine of panegyric have been long hovering, and about whom all fame must sooner or later cease? If, however, it be true, how far does it not elucidate the disadvantages of a prostituted intellect, be it never so capacious? how obviously set forth the fact that we are answerable for our talents, and that from him unto whom much is given, much will be required? Astounding fact! How monstrous will be the charge brought against that man at the day of judgment, who can give no account of those intellectual talents with which he was so prodigally gifted! Who then, thus accused, would not look back upon past days, and wish that they had been spent in comparative poverty of mind, dragging on existence in obscurity and indigence, yet in innocency of life, actuated by the precepts of the Gospel, and animated by the cheering prospect of obtaining a never-dying felicity, though it may not be adorned by those richer ornaments of the more intellectual, earned by the fame of a wellspent life! Such an idea as that of our fame following us into another world, constituting, according to its character, a portion of our happiness or misery, induces us to think of the fate of those whose *Turner's Modern History of Europe. |