not give a single good reason against its being true, beyond that it seems to them (without any investigation) to be very improbable, and because all the phenomena of life cannot as yet be explained by it, and most likely never shall be so in this world; as, for instance, how the will can influence it, by causing it to contract the muscles, (but we see that electricity can do so,) or how the involuntary actions and processes in the body are induced so as to keep up life.

For a little while after death, no perceptible alteration takes place in the organization of the body :

"Before decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers."*

And it not unfrequently happens, that no post mortem examination, not even a microscopic inspection, could show what change has taken place in the frame which should necessarily have occasioned death. Life is therefore not dependent on any particular conformation of matter, but is something added to it, and which can be taken away without occasioning, for a while, any change in its organic structure, leaving it, however, in the same state and subject to the same laws as all inanimate matter is more or less governed by; liable for one thing to decomposition.

If life, then, is distinct from matter, and is not a mere quality of it, but of an entirely different nature, we may use it as one argument why the soul may be so also, and that the latter may continue to subsist in life and consciousness when the body has returned to the dust. Man Man may therefore be said to be compounded of THREE distinct, yet united parts, all of different natures :—the inanimate or insensible clay, which is brought into action by the animal life, and governed by the soul. Tria juncta in uno. One other union is, without doubt, greatly more mysterious; but, since such is the threefold constitution of man, why should we ever doubt or call in question the existence of a Trinity of Persons in the one Godhead?

The three parts now explained, as forming the Being called man, are neither of them in strict language while separate to be so denominated. The dead body, (which is no better than a lump of clay,) is not man, for the principal part has left it, and the soul itself is not man, but what we understand by a spirit. It is, however, as before observed, sufficiently accurate, while speaking of a deceased person, to allude only to his soul, and to refer to its condition, as that in which he is, for it has been said very justly, though it must not be taken literally, that the soul of man is the man, being the only part of him which thought, reasoned, and felt pleasure or pain, and is the same during life in the body and when separated from it.*

This consideration is a very important one to be attended to in speaking of the dead generally, and its being overlooked leads to great confusion in our ideas of their condition; but most writers, as I have before remarked, when alluding to the state of the departed, refer indiscriminately to that of the body, or to that of the soul, just as it suits them at the time, and their true meaning is often impossible to be discovered.

The following remarks to the same purpose are taken from an excellent sermon by the Rev. George Garioch, minister of Meldrum :-" It is the doctrine both of reason and Scripture, that, in death, the soul is active and independent of the body. It is the doctrine of reason, for it informs us that those attributes and properties which are peculiar to mind and matter are essentially different and distinct. We are conscious of something within us which thinks, remembers, wills, to which we give the name of mind. Of the body, we can only say, that it has those properties which distinguish matter, and which are well known to us from the evidence of sense, viz. solidity, extension,

"All the ideas and sensations of which any individual is conscious, are all considered by him as inhering in some being which he calls himself, his mind, or his soul. These facts are too evident either to admit or to require proof."

Drew's Essay on the Immateriality and Immortality of the Human Soul.

hardness, softness. Now, we have not the slightest reason to suppose that matter, which has these last properties, can have any of the attributes of mind, nor that the mind which thinks, can have any of the distinguishing qualities of matter. They are not subject, consequently, to the same laws. It would seem to follow, therefore, on principles of reason, that the change in the body, to which we give the name of death, does not necessarily imply the same change in the mind. To that matter of which the bodies of men consist, and the component parts of which have been ascertained by analysis, there is added a principle of organic life. But as this principle is common both to men and to the lower animals, and belongs to matter in certain states of composition, the loss of it can have no influence upon the mind, of which it forms no part. Soon after death a change takes place in the combination of the component parts of the body--that change to which matter of all kinds is subject. The body is resolved, by the process of decomposition, into its primary elements; the matter of which it consists is changed, but it is not annihilated.-All this is a sufficient explanation of the appearances which present themselves upon the death of the body, and accounts for it no longer possessing those powers which denote in it the continuance of life. But it is no proof whatever that life has also fled from the spirit of man; since, as we have already said, it is not subject to those laws by which matter is governed. It is the nature of body that its component parts are liable to decomposition, and we have no reason to suppose that mind consists of separate parts, or that it is subject to any change resulting from such a structure, which could be capable of affecting its condition. It by no means, therefore, follows, that the dissolution of the body is accompanied by the death of the soul; the latter may continue in the exercise of all its powers, independent of the change to which the former is necessarily subject. This is the great doctrine of the soul's immateriality, and consequent immortality, which reason itself so powerfully teaches. As far as its testimony, therefore, is entitled to any weight, it goes to show that sleep is both a correct

and pleasing emblem of death, since, in both, the soul continues in a state of vigour and activity at the time when the body is at rest.”*

A consideration of the powers of the soul in dreaming, while the bodily organs of sensation have ceased to act, will also tend to show a distinct and separate nature between them. The body sinks down from fatigue,-is overpowered by sleep and loses its waking senses for a time: Its eyes see not, its ears hear not, and its limbs are usually powerless. At such times, however, the soul is often most active; its memory, imagination, and other faculties are more alive, and it seems to live in an aerial world of its own creation.

"The spirit knows no gross impediments

In dreams; but like a thing aerial

She sinks, and soars, and glides, and floats away
Delighted,"t

The more we investigate the various wonderful phenomena of dreaming, the more decided appears the distinction between soul and body, and separate nature of these two. In sleep we sometimes see the perfect representation of those we know, who are alive, even those at a distance, and those who have been long since dead, as well as faces and persons which, to the best of our remembrance, we never beheld when awake, or even had an idea of before. We then seem to see places and scenes, and as it were, to hear much, which we can afterwards remember with the greatest distinctness. Whether the soul is really capable of seeing and hearing without the assistance of the eyes or ears, while the body is alive, or whether it be supposed merely to imagine in sleep that it does so, both are equally mysterious. We read of God having frequently spoken and represented things to the souls of men in visions when their eyes were closed and their ears deaf to all external impressions, and such communications

* Sermons on various subjects of Christian doctrine and practice. 1831, + Unimore, by Professor Wilson of Edinburgh.

certainly may not have reached the mind by the organs of its earthly body. Now we know assuredly that these dreams were not the mere imaginations of the soul itself, or any efforts of its own, but communications and representations made to it. Job informs us that "In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men,—then God openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction."* That is to say, he communicates to their spirits in a supernatural manner; probably without having recourse to the bodily organs at all as the media of communication.

"The Word of the Lord" (Christ) "came to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not Abram, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me," &c.† The context plainly shows that it was our Lord himself who spoke to the patriarch, and God on such occasions, often appeared of old under some visible form, so he was probably seen by Abram as well as heard at this time. The reply of Abram seems also to have been in his sleep, for it is all included under the designation of a vision, and most of us have been sensible of having in dreams heard words spoken, and of having replied to them.

"It is delightful to be able," says the Editor of the Edinburgh Literary Gazette, "to see with the eyes of our soul (for certes in sleep it cannot be with the eyes of our body, considering that they are shut at the time) a thousand immaterial shapes and prospects which no waking eye ever beheld, yet with which we hold communication as if suddenly carried into a new state of existence."

During sleep, the intercourse of the mind and body is generally suspended, and therefore it is the most favourable time, for observing (if I may use the expression) their independence on each other. We find that often when the bodily frame is most fatigued and in the soundest sleep, the soul is most active, and indeed, may always be active during sleep, although we often do not remember on awakening that our thoughts had been employed at all, and it is the opinion of

*Job xxxiii. 15, 16.

+ Gen. xv.

1, 2.

No. 84.