IMMORTALITY.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4296, 7 October 1882, Page 4

IMMORTALITY.

(To the Editor of the Evening Stab.)

Sis,—Belief in Immortality is the most wide spread of all persuasions. Amongst the aborigines of America, it is found almost without exception. The Australians, Papuans, Polynesians, and the greater number of Asiatics believe in it, as also, did the ancient inhabitants of Europe and the Haunites of North Africa from the Nile to the Canaries. The belief may be inferred from the mode of burial as also in the sacrifice of slaves and the wholesale strangling of wives. It is not confined tb the immortality of man. The Itelians of Kamschatka believe in the renewal of the smallest fly. The Fijians believe that cocoa nut trees are immortal. Buddism is founded on the perpetual transmigration of souls, although Confucianism denies immortality. While the Jews were free from Shamanism they they did not for centuries embrace the Iranian notion of immortality. The grave or hell of the Old Testament is even less than the Greek Hades—a prison bouse of feeble shades, who can never re-visit the realm of light. In the person of Christ the doctrine first became a clear fact. He "brought life and immortality to life " in the Gospel. In the Christian theology the doctrine of immortality in the form of a heaven reserved for the faithful, and a hell reserved for those unreconciled to the Creator, is of vital importance. The truth of the doctrine of immortality is sometimes inferred from the necessity (on the assumption of a just Providence) of redressing the inequalities of the present life. But it is the flood of conviction which Christianity has brought into the human mind that gives any reality to the ethical conception of a just Providence. It is the inconsistencies of those who call themselves Christians that brings discredit upon Christianity. The long, tedious, and acrimonious discussions, sermons, lectures, and letters that have appeared lately upon immortality, conditional immortality, acquired immortality, &c, have overwhelmed the mind with foreign influences, and stripped it of self direction. With the object of ap peasing this excitement I venture respectfully to ask for a calm consideration of, and Scriptural answers to the following questions in connection with this subject. Dull times are sometimes a merciful repose granted by Providence to the overwrought and oppressed mind. It is calm and individual thought and expression that I ask for these questions, believing that their true solutions will go far to elucidate this most important subject :—• First—ls the soul as old as the spirit? Second—Has Adam sold or mortgaged the body ? Third—When was the soul accountable for sin P Fourth—When the spirit goes to the Creator at death, where goes the soul and the body? Fifth— Does the soul leave the body at death P Sixth—Was the blood of Jesus Christ shed for the soul or body of those who have died and seen corruption? Seventh —>When the body which is dust returns into dust, what is the name of the article that sleeps in the dust and awakes? Eight—Could the person or persons whose bodies have seen corruption be a member or members of the Church spoken of in sth chapter, "30th and 32nd verses Ephesians ?—I am, &c. Tbuth- Seeks f. Thames, 28th September, 1882.