Some day we shall see and hear and know it all--some
day in that heavenly future, when the soul of man shall converse and
praise and adore in one blended strain of aesthetic beauty, which shall
contain within itself the essence of all music and poesy and enraptured
sight.
Thinking thus earnestly about the soul, one comes naturally to speculate
upon the question of the spirit's return to earth after its final
departure from the body. It is a beautiful belief that the souls of our
departed friends are permitted to hover around us here on earth,
watching all our outgoings and incomings, sympathizing in all our joys
and sorrows, mourning over our transgressions, and rejoicing at our good
deeds--in a word, acting the parts of guardian angels. And there are
many, even in our day, who hold such a faith. Yet it is a belief founded
in imagination and poetic ideas of beauty, rather than in sober truth
either of reason or of revelation. The strongest argument I have ever
heard against this belief is contained in the remark of a poor old
English peasant. 'Sir,' said he, 'I doan't believe the speerits can come
back to us; for if they go to the good place, they doan't want to come
back 'ere again; and if they goes to the bad place, why God woan't let
'em.' There was more philosophy in the remark than he knew of, and I
have not yet found the philosopher who did not stagger under it.
But there is another view of the subject. I hold that the bodily senses
can only perceive material things; and the spirit spiritual things; and
hence, that, admitting the actual presence of disembodied spirits,
neither could we perceive them, nor they us, as material bodies.
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