Earlier text: THE SEVENTH-DAY SABBATH OR THE FIRSTIMMORTALITY; CONSTITUTIONAL OR CONDITIONAL.
By H. D. Chase
We smile complacently at our colored brother whose astronomy, learned from Joshua, makes sun, moon, and stars revolve around a flat earth. The smile of the next generation at our notions of man's constitution and destiny may be through tears. Terror, despair, death, have resulted from teachings now spurned by many noble Christians. Our conflicting creeds and sects prove the existence of grave, perchance fundamental, error. A glance at some of these creeds may quicken our zeal to find and banish it. The duality of man's nature has been long and widely taught; viz., that he has an immaterial, indivisible, immortal soul—the seat of thought, emotion, will, consciousness—the real man; and a body, the servant, instrument of soul. To these two, some prefix an immortal spirit, filling the Pauline catalogue of “spirit, soul, and body,” thus making man as well as God, a trinity. A smaller, but rapidly augmenting number, think man a purely material, organic unit, composed not only of gross, but of those subtile elements which manifest the phenomena of light, heat, electricity, etc., etc. Is asserted to be the final extinction of all at death; the extinction of sinners only; unconsciousness until the resurrection; dim consciousness; vivid activity because freed from clogging bodies; immediate entrance to Heaven for all, or for the good only, while the bad enter hell; these results only after the Judgment; purgatorial, restorative pains; a second probation which transmits all or a part to Heaven, leaving an incorrigible balance for endless woe or for annihilation. Let me close this imperfect list with the teachings of a learned, eloquent, earnest evangelist, lately deceased, who long held, with the title of D. D., a professorship in a theological seminary: “The sinner is justly punished after death. Since he is beyond grace, his sufferings cannot tend to his reformation. He rebels, blasphemes, increases his guilt. Justice demands heavier inflictions, which only augment the rebellion and blasphemy, and this process goes on, ‘until, in the ages of eternity, the period will arrive when God will be compelled to exert the utmost of his infinite power to hold the wretch to existence, while he wreaks upon him the324 utmost of his infinite vengeance!” The words marked as quoted made so vivid an impression that nearly the exact language has been remembered. The preacher's false theories, worked up by inexorable logic, with unflinching courage, faith and zeal, bore a natural harvest of terror, insanity, and death! Yes, the smile will be through tears! It is well for some to have changed their theories, and for others to take a deep interest in the present discussions of immortality. Thirty-six years ago an educated, beloved Christian friend astounded me by showing a tendency toward rejecting the almost universal belief in man's immortal soul. I searched long and zealously for arguments to save him. Was not I, like Dr. Haven, proudly conscious of a soul, whose communion with nature and its Author had been my chief joy? Surely, I held the truth, and that truth must save my friend. The brief space allotted to this article permits only of a very imperfect statement of facts and results. Many centuries before Christ, taught “immortal soulism,” supposed by some to have been based on corrupted traditions of Eden. Others think that it arose from a God-given longing for immortality, necessarily given to a race about to be invited to “seek for glory, honor, immortality, by patient continuance in well-doing.” Candidates for “the crown of life” must have innate aspiration for it. We sometimes mistake this noble aspiration for the actual possession! This pagan philosophy, backed by pride of heart, by ignorance of material forces, and by fixity of opinion from life-long training, has made it well-nigh impossible to read nature and the Bible aright. Manfully dismissing prejudice, let us read 1. The babe has a small, soft brain, a feeble mind; then both grow, mature, decay together. If immaterial soul only can evolve mental action, that soul, being constitutionally incapable of growth and material nutriment, would always abide in unchanging vigor. Is it asserted that thought and mind are joint products of soul and brain? Then brain is the senior and ruling partner of the firm; the soul does naught without brain, the facts soon prove that brain does all without soul. 2. Mental and moral qualities are hereditary. Our supposed immaterial, indivisible, immortal soul cannot be a product of physical generation, which is a purely material process. Each soul must be a new creation, coming pure from the Divine Hand, and the dogma of derived depravity is [on this theory] a blasphemy! Does depravity inhere in the inherited brain, and through it contaminate the new-made soul? Then, verily, brain is master, and soul is slave; such a soul is quite unnecessary. 3. Let a person be in perfect mental and muscular repose; then arousing his attention increases the heat of his brain and the amount of carbonic acid expelled from his lungs. Mental activity can be so excited as to cause a great flow of blood to the brain with rapid combustion of blood-nutriment, and an increase of heat which may require even ice to reduce it. If matter cannot think and feel and will, why all this commotion in the brain? 4. We are conscious of brain-weariness after severe mental toil, just as of muscular exhaustion after hard muscular toil. 5. The common terms, “a man of brains,” “a brainless fool,” “shallow brained,” etc., indicate a conviction that brain secretes thought. 6. It is confidently asserted that consciousness, the most subtile and sublimated of all mental products, cannot have a material origin. Yet, pressure of my fingertip on the scalp of my young friend Hooker (who had lost the upper, frontal portion of his skull by a kick from a horse), would quickly render him as unconscious as a marble statue. I know experimentally, and all ought to know by observation or unimpeachable testimony, that concussion and disease of brain often produce utter unconsciousness, in which the lapse of days, weeks, months, has no known duration to the patient. A marine, wounded at Trafalgar, remained unconscious eleven months. Then he was trepanned, the skull raised off the brain, and the surgical wound dressed. In two hours thereafter he sat up in his cot, looked around and asked how the battle was getting on! If that oak splinter had crushed his brain, he must, perforce, have remained unconscious until the resurrection brain were given. To him, a delay of ten thousand years would not have been one second. 7. Stimulants carried by the blood-currents into the brain, quicken, the sedatives suppress, thought. 8. Monomania and partial insanity cannot occur in an indivisible unit-soul; they can and do in a brain composed of many organs. The rare and curious phenomenon of double consciousness may be manifested in a brain composed of two symmetric hemispheres, which, through disease, act alternately and not conjointly; thus practically converting one person into two, wholly strangers to each other. Will immortal soulists claim two independent souls to one body? 9. Anxious in my youth to attain practical knowledge of human nature, I gave attention to Locke, Brown, Reid, Upham, and other metaphysicians of that day. Vain labor! Next, with note-book and pencil in hand, I began some practical study of the specimens accessible. While busy thus, a child aged only a few years, was introduced. Its name was Phrenology, a thoroughly practical little genius. By hundreds of observations on heads the assertions of this child were carefully verified. Phrenology makes brain the complex organ of mind, faculties being manifested in strength or feebleness according to size and quality of organ. Experts described the character of utter strangers with wonderful accuracy. I once witnessed a strange confirmation of Phrenology in a case of brain-lesion. The person was a Christian. The first symptom of disease was unusual religious fervor, with heat at the vertex of the brain. Next, conscience and firmness were involved in the fever, and inflexible duty was the constant theme. Then caution became diseased, and anxious fears were distressing. At this point (reached in a few days) I understood the gradual descent of the inflammation, and made preparation for the restraint and control of the patient when the dangerous organs of combativeness and destructiveness should be involved in this preternatural excitement. Medication did not, could not, avert this crisis of the disease, but the damages and injury to person and furniture were made light. Ice, blisters, heroic treatment, subdued the disease; and in three months the patient was cured. Such cases demonstrate the truth of Phrenology—brain thinks. A veteran University professor of natural science once exclaimed, “The more I study matter, the more I respect it.” Organic brain-matter is specially respectable. It is objected that materialism is fatalism; that matter, subject to fixed law, cannot have freedom. If man has a soul, that soul is as much a creature made under fixed laws as matter is. We cannot even comprehend how God, a being of perfect law, can be free. Conscious of freedom of choice, having a conscience which approves or accuses, assured that God has not put a lie in our constitution, we believe ourselves free. Having read a few facts in nature, let us turn to the Bible. “God formed man of the dust of the ground.” Air breathed into his nostrils caused him to live, to become a living soul (“nephesh”). He did not receive a Pagan, Platonic soul, for this “nephesh” is in the first chapter of Genesis applied to all the water and land animals, also to human corpses, etc. It here signifies a purely material organism. David believed this, saying, “He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” His wise son declared that man, by constitution, “hath no pre-eminence above the beast;” “all have one breath, all go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” Peter asserts the same, that the sinful, like “natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, . . . shall utterly perish in their own corruption.” Figures of rhetoric are justly discarded from the announcement of law and penalty, by both God and man. There is no figure in the law announced by God to Adam, “In the day that thou eatest thereof,” dying thou shalt die; neither in the sentence, “Till thou [the sinner] return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” That disposes of exactly all that sinned, not of a mere innocent body, the humble slave of an imperious soul. Then followed the glorious promise of a “seed” which should break the bonds of death and restore all to life by a resurrection,—the righteous to immortality, the wicked to the penalty of the second death, “The wages of sin is death,”—“everlasting destruction from the presence” of God and the glory of his power,—while “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ,” the promised Seed. That the death threatened the impenitent is extinction of conscious being, is unequivocally declared by the action of fire on stubble, chaff, tares, withered vine branches, felled trees useless for fruit. Immortality is conditional, to be sought by faith in Christ and “patient continuance in well doing.” Without a resurrection, the sleep of death will be eternal. There is no knowledge in the grave whither thou goest. Those who “sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,” but “the dead know not anything.” The patriarchs, the Fathers, Stephen, “fell asleep.” All that sleep in Christ, who is the bread of life, shall wake to immortality. All others “perish,” shall be as though they had not been. Bible accounts of raising the dead make no reference to a disembodied spirit, or soul. Christ took Jairus' daughter by the hand with the words, “Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise!” To the widow's son, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!” Lazarus sleepeth,—is dead, corrupted, in the tomb, but the order is, “Lazarus, come forth.” Peter, after prayer, turned to a corpse and said, “Tabitha, arise!” If the souls of the beloved Lazarus and Tabitha were in Heaven, it were cruel to recall them to toil and death once more.—H. D. Chase, LL. D., in Northern Christian Advocate. GLIMPSES OF THE WAY.
By Mary L. Williams
The shadows of the past often mingle with the gray dawnings of the future. We see it all—our past life unfolds before our mental vision. Every step of the way, however rough and thorny, is marked by the goodness and mercy of His hand who chastens but in love. Every disappointment brings us nearer and nearer to the Good Shepherd, who gently folds the tender lambs in his bosom. Every sorrow should strengthen our faith; every trial should brighten our hope; every affliction should increase and intensify our love. As we look back upon the path we have trod, we see that the Angel of the Covenant has ever hovered over us, sealing unto us the “sure mercies of David,” the promises of God to his people. We have often groped our way in darkness, it is true; but when we have returned unto the Lord, he has again revealed unto us the brightness of his most excellent glory, and we have been led to exclaim with David, “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth;” therefore, “I will be glad and rejoice in thee; I will sing praise to thy name, O thou Most High.” Why do we cling to earthly things, when there is a brighter land so near that we can almost see its shores? Glimpses of its glories are beckoning us on; its flowers fade not, and its songs of rejoicing are never exchanged for notes of woe. Partings and sad farewells, which here wring our hearts with keenest anguish, are unknown there; sighing is heard no more, and tears forever cease to flow. Hallowed land! thy beauties have won my heart; and I long for the time to come when my weary feet shall stand upon the streets of thy beautiful city, and my tongue shall join the glad anthems which ever employ thy blessed inhabitants. Let us hope on; this life of trial will soon give place to one of eternal blessedness. When the dark waves of sorrow gather around us, and threaten to overflow every bright spot upon our lone way, there is an Ark of Safety in which we may securely rest. When even those who are nearest and dearest turn from us, led aside by self-interest or evil influences, One will ever be true, and his name is Emmanuel. The home which he will prepare for his faithful followers, shall know no night. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” A BAPTIST MINISTER ON ENDLESS MISERY.
The distinguished Rev. John Foster, of England, than whom, perhaps no greater light ever arose in the Baptist Church, says of endless misery:— “I object to it in general, that it is revolting to every sensibility of the soul, to every feeling of humanity, to all that is generous in religion and reason. It dishonors and demonizes the God of the universe! Look at it! The whole heathen world inevitably damned! Have you pondered this fearful proposition! What a wholesale destruction is here. Two-thirds of the human race damned every thirty years, without the possibility of salvation, not including the vast array of reprobates in Christian countries! Not less than seven millions of souls damned every generation! All reprobates! Behold that dreadful column marching forward to the unavoidable doom! Twenty-one hundred millions—twice the population of the whole globe every hundred years—damned! consigned to the vengeance of eternal fire, to endure the woes of hell forever! Behold them, as that column sinks away into the mouth of the burning pit, but ever supplied with new recruits at the farther end, and thus moving on from age to age, filling the insatiable jaws of the yawning gulf. And as you see that column move, and hear the roar of the devouring abyss, into whose flaming jaws they plunge, ask the question, ‘Why are all these damned?’” “Add to this melancholy, dreadful procession, all the descendants of Adam, and all the reprobates in nominally Christian countries. Stop until your vision takes in the utmost of the slowly moving column of souls. Behold the cataract of immortal souls, dashing on perpetually down the steep, ever-yawning abyss. Lo! that river, as it stretches away through ages and generations—a river of immortal beings swallowed up in hell. And now, pause and consider again, ‘Who are these?’ What is that hell into which they plunge? And why are they so damned? These are God’s creatures made and fashioned by himself. That abyss into which they are cast, is the place of eternal torment. Stop, take in the thought, Eternal! Eternal! No end! A million of years are gone, they suffer on. As many million of ages as there are grains of sand in the solid globe have passed—they suffer still! And still, as many myriads more as atoms in the universe multiplied by every second that had passed before—and now their woe has just commenced. Not a second compared with their eternal years is passed. And now their woe has just begun. To them there is no hope! No light will ever dawn upon their dungeon, no mercy will ever speak peace to their troubled spirits325 . They dwell amid the flames of endless burnings. My spirit shivers and burns at the horrid imputation! What has God done that his rational creatures should so foully slander his adorable character? Pardon me, every power of my soul revolts at the blasphemy!” Suppose an earthly prince should condescend
To bid you to his banquet, as a friend;
Would you not try all means within your power
To be in court at the appointed hour? Shall such attention to a worm be given,
And be refused to the God of Heaven?
Who can expect to be by Jesus blessed,
If absent when he comes to meet his guest? My brethren, this would never be the case,
If we were lively in the Christian race;
Then every hindrance would be laid aside,
To see and hear of Jesus crucified. If you complain you have so far to come,
Set out a little sooner from your home;
But those who dwell hard by have no excuse,
Except in idleness, or sleep, or ease. A little less indulgence in the bed,
A little more contrivance in the head,
A little more devotion in the mind,
Would quite prevent your being so behind. I grant, lest I should seem to be severe,
There are domestic cases here and there;
Age, illness, service,—things quite unforeseen,
To censure which I surely do not mean. But such will not (unless I greatly err)
Among the prudent very oft occur;
And when they do, you surely should endeavor
To come at last; ’tis better late than never. I AM A woman; tell me not of fame!
The eagle’s wing may sweep the stormy path,
And fling back arrows, where the dove would die.
Look on those flowers near yon acacia tree—
The lily of the valley—mark how pure
The snowy blossoms, and how soft a breath
Is almost hidden by the large, dark leaves.
Not only have those delicate flowers a gift
Of sweetness and of beauty, but the root—
A healing power dwells there, fragrant and fair,
But dwelling still in some beloved shade.
Is not this woman’s emblem? she whose smile
Should only wake the loveliness of home;
Who seeks support and shelter from man’s heart,
And pays it with affection, quiet, deep,
And in his sickness, sorrow, with an aid
He did not deem in aught so fragile dwelt. TERRIBLE CONDITION OF ASIATIC TURKEY.
Two months ago I wrote of the Armenian question and alluded incidentally to the present condition of Asia Minor, but it is too terrible a story to be passed over in this way. If any one would know what it is to live amid the crumbling ruins of a falling empire let him come now and take up his abode in Asia Minor. He will never cease to pray that no such calamity may befall his own native land. It is not simply the Christians who are suffering, but the whole population. Famine, in its most terrible forms, rages over whole provinces, coming almost within sight of the gilded palaces of Constantinople. There is a province not so far from us as Albany is from New York, which is not unknown to those familiar with the missionary work in Turkey, which ought to be famous as the first place where the Armenian Protestants voluntarily undertook to support their own pastor, who joyfully endured great privation to enable them to become independent. This is Adabazaar, near Nicomedia. Into this small province the Turks sent 40,000 armed Circassians, giving them nothing to live upon and taking no means to protect the inhabitants, who are both Turks and Armenians. For a year past the people have been appealing in vain to the Turkish government and to the foreign ambassadors for protection. Deputations have come, consuls have been sent there to investigate, but nothing has been done. First came the reports that all the horses and cattle had been stolen by the Circassians; then that robberies and murders took place every day; that the people did not dare to leave their villages; then that hundreds were dying of starvation; now that these Circassians have seized the cultivated fields for themselves, and that there is a probability of a massacre of the helpless unarmed population. All this time the government has been forcibly collecting taxes, but has done nothing else. The people are in utter despair, and well they may be. What can they do but lie down and die? Nor can one altogether blame the Circassians. They are savages; capable of civilization but uncivilized. They have nothing to eat; they have arms in their hands, and they cannot be expected to sit down and starve so long as there is anything for them to plunder. Even civilized men under such circumstances would be very likely to practically adopt the theory of the survival of the fittest and judge themselves to be of that class who ought to survive. The real fault is with the Turkish government; first in sending the Circassians there, second, in making no provision for their support and no attempt to keep them in order. If such things happen within a hundred miles of Constantinople, what may be expected in distant provinces? The Turkish population is suffering everywhere from losses occasioned by the war. Of the million of able-bodied men, most of them married, who were drafted during the war, not more than one-third have lived to return to their homes. All of these were Turks, and their families have been left as a charge upon the villages. The government has paid nothing for the services of these soldiers, pays no pensions, and exacts with an iron hand the same taxes as before. They have repudiated first the paper money, then the copper, and now they have by decree reduced the value of all the other money in circulation in Asia Minor one-half. This loss has fallen most heavily upon the poor Turkish population. In any other country they would long since have risen in rebellion and driven the Sultan from his throne, but they have no leaders. The old Beys who used to oppress but protect and lead the people are all gone, and there is no one to raise the standard of revolt. The long-suffering Moslems accept the decrees of fate and calmly starve to death. Men, women, and children are dying thus by hundreds all through Asia Minor. They are not a race who ought to be left thus to starve, these Anatolian Turks. They are the best that are left of the old Osmanlis and Seljuks, and under a good government would be the best possible subjects. They have many good qualities to command the sympathy of the world, but the world seems to care very little for them. The Armenians, especially in Armenia itself, are dying of famine in great numbers. The ecclesiastical authorities, the American missionaries, and the consuls have proclaimed their sufferings to the world and appealed for aid. Considerable sums have been subscribed here. But that which is most distressing in regard to this famine is the fact that it results rather from misgovernment than from natural causes, although these have aggravated it. The Kurds have been suffered for more than three years to ravage these provinces. The people have been crushed at the same time by unbearable taxation, and officials have combined with the rich to lock up what food there is. The same stories come from Mesopotamia. Everywhere there is greater oppression, heavier taxation, more misrule, and less protection than ever before, and everywhere the people are starving. The English consuls report imminent danger of terrible massacres throughout the country, and letters from the famine-stricken districts report that the people who are living on roots and grasses and earth are dying of a disease which resembles the plague. Should this dreadful “black death” once gather strength among the dying population of Asia Minor it would inevitably sweep over the world, and thus execute divine judgment on the people of Europe who have chosen for their own selfish interests and jealousies to maintain “the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire.” It is at least one consolation, however, to know that we are to have no more Beaconsfield reforms in Turkey; that the English people have improved the first opportunity to repudiate the policy of the man who declared that the speeches of Mr. Gladstone were a greater crime than the Bulgarian massacres. I only wish that he might be doomed to spend the rest of his days in Asia Minor, which has been since 1878 under his special protection. He is a great, a wonderful man. I have no wish to deny this; but he has been an unmitigated curse to the people of the East. I believe that he intended in the end to annex Asia Minor to the British empire. Had he done it when he had the power, the people would have forgiven the past; but, as it is, his name will be cursed in the East for many generations to come. Other parts of Asiatic Turkey are in a state of anarchy bordering on revolution, and it is the opinion of the embassies here that the Arab population of the empire may be the first to throw off the yoke of Turkish bondage. There is, no doubt, at the present moment a great conspiracy extending from Arabia to the Kurdish Mountains which may result in open rebellion any day. In fact, Arabia is already in rebellion, and Syria is all ready to follow. These Arabs far surpass the Turks in intelligence, and hate them with intense hatred. They have long been waiting for a leader to raise the standard of revolt. Midhat Pacha, now Governor of Syria, hopes to take advantage of this feeling and secure Syria for himself. This is well known at Constantinople and in Europe; but it is very doubtful whether he can secure the sympathy of the Arabs. He is himself a native of Bulgaria, and I believe, a Slavic Mussulman; but there he is looked upon as a Turk, and his chief hope of success lies in the reputation which he has gained in Europe; but this is rather popular than official. The European governments have no great faith in him. Still he has a certain chance of securing some European intervention in his favor, as he is the actual ruler, and Europe has no wish to see anarchy prevail in Syria. At Constantinople all is quiet. The Sultan has managed to concentrate the whole government in his own hands. No minister has any power, and even ordinary police regulations must go to the palace to be examined and approved by the Sultan himself. This has caused a complete dead lock in the government. The council of the ministers has now some 4,000 items of unfinished business on hand, and the number increases every day. There is much distress among the common people, and a complete stagnation of business. Robbery and murder are every-day occurrences, and it is unsafe to go far outside the city, but there are no signs of any active discontent. People use very violent language, even in public places; but we have 40,000 troops in the city, and no one seems inclined to stir up rebellion. Government officers are not paid, but most of them manage to live on plunder of some kind, and they submit to their fate. Still there is a general feeling of uneasiness, and there is an impression that we shall have a European intervention within a few months.—Correspondent of the Christian Union, Constantinople, April 6, 1880.