Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/136

 waiting for the resumption of the body; it seems to view one event as directly following the other in orderly sequence. The idea of the resurrection of the hody assumes that it will have immortality conferred upon it; for that must be the obvious consequence of its eternal reunition with the soul. But, certainly, this is nowhere taught in the Scriptures; from them we learn that immortality was conferred only upon the soul. God breathed into the nostrils of man, and he became a "living soul." The body is of dust; and the dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

Men have felt a difficulty in realizing the idea of a future life, and of living without the natural body, in consequence of the materialism which has grown up among them; and specially because they have not had any very definite knowledge concerning the soul in a state of separation from the body. "The Church" has not taught her people any intelligible doctrines upon the subject; it occupies no place in her catechism, or articles of faith; and the populace are left to vague conjecture respecting it. Indeed, with the multitude, the "soul" has become a word without a corresponding reality in the mind; and the result is a difficulty in conceiving how men can exist after death without the resumption of their natural body. It is believed that man is to live for ever; but because the soul is thought of as a breath, a vapour, or a phantom, which might float away to nothing, if it were not fixed in a physical body, the Church has invented the doctrine of the future resurrection of the material body.

But this conceit conld never have found acceptance and a resting-place with men, if they had duly reflected on the fact that it is the soul which really constitutes the man.