Page:Life, Death, and Immortality.pdf/5

 High. And it was not the sheer beauty of them all, not the radiance of the glad exuberance of Nature; but rather the physical comfort and the luxurious enjoyment which they promised; the rich flavor of the purple scented draught, rather than the gracious beauty of the vine-tendrils, and the exquisite contrast of color in the deep ruby of the grape-juice and the brown and creamy ancles around which it bubbled under the rays of the setting sun.

In horrible contrast with the scenes in which he delighted stood to the Hebrew—the grave. His sensuous, or rather his sensual, delight in life gave a vivid horror to his shrinking from death, from the worm and the corruption, the silence and the gloom. Therefore Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, weeping, when he was like to die, and on his recovery he cried: "The grave cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day" (Is. xxxviii., 18, 19).

The Hebrew, ere he came into contact with the more cultured Babylonians, had no idea of immortality. To him death was the end of the individual life. The blessings and the curses of his God applied only to human life. Nothing can be plainer than the declarations of Solomon, "the wisest of men", regarding the end of personal consciousness. "The living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished: neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest" (Eccles. ix., 5, 6, 10). "That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place: all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is