flocks and the sons of the alien shall be her plowmen and her vinedressers. 66 But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord, men shall call you the ministers of our God, ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves" (Isa. lxi. 5, 6). "In that day shall there be upon the bridles of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD, and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts, and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts" (Zech. xiv. 20, 21). Now, however opposed this may be to the preconception of any of our readers, or the popular conception of the many, we shall not deem it sufficient that they assail our position only, but that they show us theirs side by side with ours, and so give the readers of the RAINBOW the opportunity of comparing both with the Scriptures, which are the true test of us all. The thoughtless can, much to their own satisfaction, pull down and destroy another man's theory; but the thoughtful alone can construct a theory to the satisfaction of others.

Hackney, London, E.

NATHANIEL STARKEY.

SPRING THOUGHTS.

T the approach of the sweet season of spring, heralded by the singing

stand ready to be clothed with leafy beauty, after a winter, to some of us so terribly severe, our hearts are gladdened. We feel that the common bounties of God's providence demand our gratitude. By common bounties, I mean those He sheds on the evil and on the good; on the evil, alas! too often in vain, seeing they say to the Giver: "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways." Let it not be so with the writer and the reader. In winter, as in spring, in prosperity as in adversity, in straits as in abundance, let us recognise His hand, and thankfully acknowledge "He doeth all things well." How abundant and abundantly clear are the evidences, and the testimonies too, that "to all the Lord is good; that "His tender mercies are over all His works." Are we not assured that not a sparrow falls to the ground without His notice? that He provides food for the young ravens that cry? that He filleth all things living with plenteousness? that the very hairs of our heads are all numbered? Can it be supposed that He regards with indifference the late lamentable sacrifice of twenty thousand human lives in England's mad war for a "scientific frontier," and of thrice twenty thousand camels and horses that perished? Nay, verily. He "in whose hands is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind, takes cognisance, and marks with pitying eye both man and beast. And, surely, were it not for His restraining mercy, our earth, so frail through sin, else so fair and lovely, would become an unmitigated hell; for, indeed, all too truly has the poet of the "Night Thoughts" said:

"Man is to man the sorest, surest ill."

But we fall back on this, "He doeth all things well." True it is that, in His perfect wisdom, which is in harmony with His perfect goodness, He suffers us to receive the due reward of our errors and transgressions. Take a simple illustration. Wilfully or unguardedly, I eat and drink to excess day after day. By and by the inevitable law is brought to bear on me. Sooner or later I suffer bodily discomfort, bodily disorder; and 'tis well if I take warning in time, lest my disorder become chronic. But can I justly impute blame to the Almighty ? Am I not in mercy reminded that every transgression and disobedience must and will receive a due recompense of reward? else, would not everything go hopelessly wrong with me? Should I not be in danger of going from bad to worse with a fatally smooth descent? Rather be it mine to heed the warning, conscious that Divine wisdom cannot err, and mindful of the apostolic exhortation, "Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is."

To this all-important end may I be an apt, attentive, and obedient learner in His school, who still teaches as never man taught. Then and thus will the promise be fulfilled in my experience, "Whoso hearkeneth unto Me shall dwell safely." I shall be graciously brought into His banqueting house, and His banner over me will be love. He will compass me about with songs of deliverance, and enable me to say with exulting and adoring joy, "The winter is past, the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come."

May it be so in His boundless and unfailing mercy who doeth all things well. THOMSON SHARP.

Eatington, Stratford-on-Avon.

AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF DEATH.

HE nature of death, its immediate consequences, and its total abolition

has gone hopelessly astray; owing, doubtless, to the adoption of the Platonic theory respecting the attributes of the human soul.

It is desirable, therefore, before considering these subjects to compare the Platonic theory with the Biblical revelation, and determine which of the two has the greater claim upon our confidence. Plato taught that

man is a compound being, consisting of two parts-body and soul; the body gross, carnal, and perishable; the soul indivisible, immaterial, and immortal. He considered this immaterial soul to be essentially the man; complete in itself; independent of the body; retaining at death all the functions of the bodily organisation and capable of indefinite progress when liberated from its outward and inferior covering. This theory has unhappily been adopted by the Christian Church, and engrafted upon the Scripture scheme of redemption, to the no small injury of the entire range of Divine truth.

The Biblical explanation of this matter is, on the contrary, as follows: Man's nature is tripartite, consisting of body, soul, and spirit; the body and soul perishable; the spirit, irrespective of moral conditions, returning at death to God who gave it. "Then shall the dust return to the

earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it (Eccles. xii. 7).

The terms soul and spirit are never used synonymously or interchangeably in the sacred Scriptures; and for this reason the two words express totally different ideas. The Biblical soul is a soul that can die. "The soul (psuche, Sept.) that sinneth it shall die" (Ez. xviii. 4). "When thou shalt make his soul (psuche) an offering for sin" (Isa. liii. 10). "The Good Shepherd giveth His life (psuche, soul) for the sheep (John x. 11). "Thou wilt not leave my soul (psuche) in hell" (hades, the grave) (Acts ii. 27). These examples are sufficient to show that the Biblical soul has nothing in common with the Platonic or indestructible soul, or what in the present day is understood by this term. It is a sad fact that the public teaching of the day, the hymnology and the whole scope of religious literature perpetuate, an erroneous meaning of the word soul to the utter confusion of its Scriptural use.

In still further contrast with the Platonic theory the Scriptures declare that the essential characteristics of man are to be found in his corporeal organism, and not in his immaterial or spiritual nature. The possession of spirit is not a peculiar characteristic of man; angels possess spirit, and for that matter so do the inferior creation, the brute beasts, &c. The graceful form, the erect bearing, the physical organisation-these constitute the man; which fact is demonstrated by direct Scripture statement and by the incarnation of Christ. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Gen. ii. 7). Redemption required that the Redeemer should become a man, and should take hold upon the seed of Abraham, and "inasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood He also Himself likewise took part of the same (Heb. ii. 14). Consequently "Christ was made of a woman, made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. iv. 4, 5). Had the Saviour taken the nature of angels he would have possessed spirit, but he would not have been a man. The incarnation of Christ supplies an irrefragable proof that the organised body is the essential constituent of the man.

Again. The spirit whilst in union with the body is the source of vitality and intelligence. "The body without the spirit is dead" (James ii. 26). "What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him?" (1 Cor. ii. 11). Nevertheless, there is nothing either in Scripture or in human experience to show that the spirit "unclothed" or "naked" (2 Cor. v. 3) is capable in a bodiless state of exercising any functions corresponding to those possessed by the living organised body. The bodily organism is the alone means by which the spirit can communicate with or receive impressions from the outer world, or indeed of producing any subjective ideas whatever. The cerebral functions are essential to thinking. Loss of any of the bodily functions, such as seeing, hearing, or thinking, cannot be supplemented or made good by any intrinsic power possessed by the spirit. Their loss is irremediable, and in case of death must be total and absolute. The beautiful artistic conceptions of the painter cannot be transferred to paper without the agency of matter-pencil, fingers, hands and arms, &c., and not only so, but the very conceptions themselves can have no exis

tence without the aid of matter. It is the universal experience of men that the matter of the brain is essential to thinking; severe injury of the brain suspends all mental operations, much more must its entire destruction result in total unconsciousness. Hence the necessity, on philosophical grounds as well as upon the ground of Scripture truth, for a new bodily organism, or, in other words, the resurrection of the dead.

With these general remarks we are now in a position the better to understand the nature and effects of death, and we shall find, as we naturally might expect, that the statements in the sacred Scriptures concerning death, and the Biblical revelation of man's tripartite nature, agree perfectly together.

What then is death? What are its effects upon the nature of man? and what the condition to which man is reduced by its power? The answer given to these questions by the Platonist is that death is a transition or translation to another state of being; that man does not die, but, like Enoch or Elijah, is translated to another region, either of happiness or woe. Unfortunately for this illustration, the two Patriarchs mentioned did not die, so that there is not the slighest analogy between two men who did not die and the generality of mankind who do die. But what saith the Scripture?

"He

1. The Scriptures, as we have already seen, affirm that the man is the living bodily organism, and that this organism is made of dust. knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust" (Psa. ciii. 14). The effect of death upon this framework of dust is, as we are well aware, its destruction. This was the penalty incurred by our first parents. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Gen. iii. 19). No mention is made here of any sufferings in a spirit world; these are simply the additions and inventions of men. The same penalty was inflicted upon the antediluvians. "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth" (Gen. vi. 7); and this is the general character of death experienced by all men. "Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return, ye children of men" (Psalm xc. 3). Man, the child of dust, whose breath is in his nostrils, is not translated to some other sphere of being by death, but is destroyed thereby.

2. The Scriptures answer further that the spirit of man, the source of life and intelligence whilst in union with the body, does at death return to God who gave it (Eccles. xii. 7). As to its actual condition in the denuded state, not the slightest information is vouchsafed to us in the only source of information we possess, that is the Bible, and we are left to infer from what we know of human psychology by actual experience, that apart from its organism the spirit has no power of exercising or supplementing organic functions; but that these functions cease and determine at death. The spirit is not an entity, a being complete in itself, but simply a part of a wondrous whole, and hence the " rationale" of the Scripture doctrine of a resurrection of the dead. Were the spirit capable of exercising these functional powers in its separate condition, there would be no occasion for a new bodily organism, and so evidently is this the case, that Platonists very seldom make any reference to the doctrine of the resurrection.

The general tenour of Scripture will confirm the foregoing remarks; will demonstrate that death is the destruction of man, and not a transition

to another sphere of being. "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee" (Psa. vi. 5). "For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything." "For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest" (Eccl. ix. 5, 10). "The night cometh when no man can work" (John ix. 4). "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence" (Psa. cxv. 17). "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake" (Dan. xii. 2).

These passages are utterly incompatible with the modern theory of death; to know nothing, and yet to know as we are known; to be unable to praise God, and yet to be chanting hosannas with the heavenly hosts; to do no manner of work or device, and yet to be ministering spirits to the living; to be asleep and dead, and yet at the same moment of time to be awake and alive to all the felicities of Paradise, are ideas absolutely contradictory and impossible. Yet they serve to show the extreme departure of the Church from sound Scriptural doctrine; neither the heaven nor the hell of the modern pulpit has any place in God's revelation.

3. Again. The nature of death has been defined by our blessed Lord to be the "losing of the soul;" and, surely, a man is never more lost than when he is dead. "For whosoever will save his life (psuche, soul) shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life (psuche, soul) for My sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul" (psuche) (Matt. xvi. 25, 26). According to to this passage, a man may lose his soul either for a time or utterly and absolutely; death, either in the case of the righteous or in the case of the wicked, is the " losing of the soul" in the case of the righteous the soul is restored at the resurrection, never to be lost any more; in the case of the wicked, the soul is restored simply for the purposes of judgment; and then, when condemned, body and soul are cast into hell (gehenna) for absolute destruction; this is the second death. Our Lord, in Luke xii. 4, 5, and in Matt. x. 28, puts this case very clearly. "Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do;" man's power cannot extend beyond the killing of the body and the destruction of the life (psuche) temporarily; but the dead are not beyond the reach of Divine power; there is a judgment to come, and the first death affords no escape from it; the guilty soul will be dragged from its hades prison-house, and in gehenna receive the due reward of its deeds, viz., absolute extinction.

The faithful disciple, however, who is willing to die for Christ's sake, or, in the words of our Lord, to "lose his soul" temporarily, shall find it again (i. e., at the resurrection), and shall then keep it to life eternal. See John xii. 25-" He that loveth his life (psuche) shall lose it; and he that hateth his life (psuche) in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." Thus death to the Christian is the temporary loss of his soul; but, were death perpetual, were it an eternal sleep, how then? In that case, says the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. xv. 18), we should altogether perish: "if Christ be not raised your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." Paul's hopes were fixed upon a future life, but if the dead be not raised, there would be, in