Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/220

214 clearly defined idea of what the soul is or of its mode of existence after the death of the body. It was thought of as something ethereal, a kind of vapor or shadow, not as a substantial entity existing in any definite form. How, then, could there have been any other than the most vague idea concerning the realm which the soul enters when it leaves the body? And what could resist and drive back the in-coming tide of skepticism in regard to a life beyond the grave, but some further and trustworthy revelation of the sublime fact, accompanied with adequate rational evidence?

It is thought by some that any disclosures concerning the world beyond the grave, would be of no practical value even if true. Others think that heaven is above our human thought; and that therefore any revelation of its grand realities would be useless, because unintelligible to dwellers here on earth. But others, of profound thought and deep religious experience, have thought differently. Dr. William Ellery Channing, mourning over the feebleness and increasing lack of faith even in the immortality of the soul, among Christians of his day, says:

"This faith is lamentably weak in the multitude of men. To multitudes, Heaven is almost a