" Hereupon the ancient sages asked, "What do the
people on the earth think of such information?" The three strangers
replied, "We know that it is true, because we are here, and have viewed
and examined everything; wherefore we will tell you what has been said
and reasoned about it on earth." Then the PRIEST said, "Those of our
order, when they first heard such relations, called them visions, then
fictions; afterwards they insisted that the man had seen spectres, and
lastly they hesitated, and said, 'Believe them who will; we have
hitherto taught that a man will not be in a body after death until the
day of the last judgement.'" Then the sages asked, "Are there no
intelligent persons among those of your order, who can prove and evince
the truth, that a man lives a man after death?" The priest said, "There
are indeed some who prove it, but not to the conviction of others. Those
who prove it say, that it is contrary to sound reason to believe, that a
man does not live a man till the day of the last judgement, and that in
the mean while he is a soul without a body. What is the soul, or where
is it in the interim? Is it a vapor, or some wind floating in the
atmosphere, or some thing hidden in the bowels of the earth? Have the
souls of Adam and Eve, and of all their posterity, now for six thousand
years, or sixty ages, been flying about in the universe, or been shut up
in the bowels of the earth, waiting for the last judgement? What can be
more anxious and miserable than such an expectation? May not their lot
in such a case be compared with that of prisoners bound hand and foot,
and lying in a dungeon? If such be a man's lot after death, would it not
be better to be born an ass than a man? Is it not also contrary to
reason to believe, that the soul can be re-clothed with its body? Is not
the body eaten up by worms, mice, and fish? And can a bony skeleton that
has been parched in the sun, or mouldered into dust, be introduced into
a new body? And how could the cadaverous and putrid materials be
collected, and reunited to the souls? When such questions as these are
urged, those of our order do not offer any answers grounded in reason,
but adhere to their creed, saying, 'We keep reason under obedience to
faith.
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