Mortal or Immortal? by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 18, 1902

Mortal or Immortal?

By Editor

THIS is the question which the noted clergyman, Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, propounded to his congregation in the Madison Square Presbyterian church, New York, January 26. The question has reference to the soul. His position is that it depends on how it is trained, whether it will live forever or not. The report says that he declared against the popular evangelical belief that all souls are immortal. He expressly gave it as his opinion that the Scriptures do not teach immunity of a soul from death, and that the soul must be taken care of in this life, or else it will perish utterly, either at the death of the body or after a longer or shorter period of the life beyond the grave. Dr. Parkhurst said in part: “There is nothing in Scripture or in things that encourages us to feel that the soul cannot be kept from dying any more than the body, unless it is taken care of. There is no warrant from Bible or from nature for supposing that a soul carries within itself a policy of insurance against its own eventual obliteration.”

The report says that “the sermon is attracting some attention, owing to the fact that most Presbyterians adhere to the belief in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.”

We are glad to see such utterances from such a source, as they will tend still further to weaken the fast-disappearing doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which has been prolific of so many and such immovable errors in the Church.