30. Soul’s Destiny
Soul’s Destiny THE SOUL.—The soul is described as the intelligent, immaterial and immortal part of man. The animating, separable, surviving entity, the vehicle of individual personal existence. The seat of real life or vitality, the source of action; the animating or essential part.
SOUL OF BOOKS.—A Christian young man, a great lover of books, was dying, and was haunted by a singular distress: because that he should be immortal, he should read no more books. Mr. Binney was in the habit of going to see him, so on the next visit the lady told him of this singular sorrow. Holding the lad’s hand, he said, “Ah, my dear boy, they tell me that you are only sorry to die because you will be able to read no more books; but, you know, you are going amongst the souls of books—amongst the souls of the men who thought the books.”
TITLE TO HEAVEN.—A man dreamed that he stood beside the gate of Heaven, when the spirit of a rich man came and sought admittance on the ground of his wealth and fame. He was reminded that those things belong to time only, and turned away in despair. Another sought entrance on the ground of his integrity, but was repulsed by the angel, saying, “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.” A third pleaded his denominational zeal, but was refused with the remark, “There is no name given under Heaven, or among men, whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus.” At length, a spirit came, crying, “The blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin.” To it the gates of Heaven flew open and the angel said, “An abundant entrance is ministered to you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” OUR PERSONALITY.—As a human being, my personality is and remains infringeable, unchangeable, eternal. O what a weight of importance rests upon this fact! Think of it! Bring it home with due force to your own mind. I shall never be somebody else. No, my personality or identity, as a human being, as now on earth in the mortal body, shall be and remain so after death and resurrection, either glorified in Heaven ox lost in Hell. THE VEIL.—There is only a veil between us and Heaven! A veil is the thinnest and frailest of all conceivable partitions. It is but a fine tissue, a delicate fabric of embroidery. It waves in the wind; the touch of a child may stir it and accident may rend it; the silent action of time will moulder it away. The veil that conceals Heaven is only our embodied existence; and though “fearfully and wonderfully made,” it is only wrought out of our frail mortality. So slight is it that the puncture of a thorn, the touch of an insect’s sting, the breath of an infected atmosphere, may make it shake and fall. In a bound, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in the throb of a pulse, in the flash of a thought, we may start into disembodied spirits.
MAN’S CHIEF END.—Lady Huntingdon, one evening, was on her way to a brilliant assembly; when suddenly there darted into her soul these words, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever,” which she had committed to memory years before in learning the Catechism. Prom that hour, her whole life revolved round a new center. The guilty, trembling sinner, hitherto occupied with her poor self, grazed on the face of Him who died for her; and, as she gazed, her conscience found peace, and her heart a satisfying rest. Her whole life became one “living sacrifice.”