06. Immortality
Immortality
PROBLEM TO SOLVE.—A young man, noted for his mathematical attainments, was fond of challenging his fellow-students to a trial of skill in solving difficult problems. One day a class-mate came into his study, and, laying a folded paper before him, said, “There is a problem I wish you would help me solve,” and immediately left the room. The paper was eagerly unfolded and there instead of a question in mathematics were traced the lines: “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” With a gesture of impatience, he tore the paper to atoms, and turned again to his books. But in vain he tried to shake off the impression of the solemn words. The Holy Spirit pressed home his conviction of guilt and danger, so that he could find no peace till he found it by believing in Jesus.
WHAT IS SOUL?—Laura Bridgman was an exceedingly interesting young girl who was not only deaf and dumb, but blind Her instructor, endeavoring to show the difference between the material and immaterial, used the word soul. “What is soul?” she asked. “That which thinks, feels, hopes, loves.” “And aches,” she responded.
UNBELIEF TESTED BY LOSS OF DEAR ONES.—Did you ever know a man who denied the immortality of the soul when following the body of a loved one to the grave? Throughout the sad and solemn scenes of a death and funeral no man, unless he be unbalanced, can say: “I have buried my wife, or my child, and that is the last of them, for the idea of an immortal soul is a myth.”
VOICE OF THE SOUL.—After all, let a man take what pains he may to hush it down, the soul is an awful, ghostly restless possession for a bad man to have. Who knows the scope and bounds of it? What a mistaken creature is he who locks his door to keep out spirits, while he has in his own body a spirit he fears to meet alone.
MOTHER.—A dear little girl, who had lost her mother at an age too young to fix the loved features in her memory, was left to a kind friend who took almost a mother’s care of her. She was as frail as beautiful, and as the bud of her heart unfolded, it seemed as if it was won Heavenward by the mother’s prayers or influence. She faded early, and as she lay in the lap of her friend she would say: “Now tell me about my mother.” After the oft-told story had been repeated she would whisper: “Take me into the parlor, I want to see my mother,” and so she would lie gazing on her mother’s picture. The hour for her own death came. “Do you know me,” sobbed close to her cheek the voice of one very dear to her, but the question awoke no answer. All at once a brightness, as if from the upper world, spread over her face. The eyes opened, the lips parted, the little hands flew up, and gazing into the far-above, she cried “mother!” and passed away.
AH! THERE THOU ART.—Most touching is the story of Carnaval, of Paris. By the death of the object of his most tender and devoted affection his mind became clouded, and he could never be made to understand that she was really dead, but spent his life in the vain search for his lost one. In most affecting tones he would mourn her absence and chide her long delay. Thus time wore on, and he too came down to the river’s brink. In his last moments, he suddenly aroused, his face was lit up as with a wondrous joy, and reaching forth his arms as if grasping something, uttered the name of his long-lost love, and exclaimed: “Ah! there thou art at last.”