Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 3.pdf/68

 it is not the body which sees, feels, moves, or speaks. The body itself is but an outward form, an insensible covering; and it is the spirit alone which feels, hears, moves, and speaks. In short the spirit is the man himself, and the mortal body is but a garment which clothes it while in this material world.

And what is the inevitable result? It is—that if the spirit alone hears, sees, moves, and speaks, then that spirit must possess organs, as means by which it can exercise those faculties.

So far nature, the handmaid of religion, leads us. Thus might a heathen have argued, from an inspection of the work of death. Here, however, we quit her guidance, and take up another teacher. Revelation comes now to unfold what nature might infer, but could never establish. It tells us that man lives beyond the grave, establishing at once the fact, that the spirit, and not the body, is the man himself. It tells us, too, that man, though removed from earth and earthly objects, is not a mere shadow, a breath, an

but a sentient and living being, with feelings and desires which make his happiness or misery, and placed in a situation, not of solitary existence, but with living beings like himself, endued with like affections, desires, and feelings. It tells us, that every sense which the body here seems to possess, is really possessed by the spirit, and to a degree of perfection of which man, in his mortal state, can form no idea. In fine, its descriptions render that plain and clear which was only problematical before; and afford a direct proof that the bodily senses are but instruments by which the