AN eminent divine was once trying to teach a number of children that the soul would live after they were dead. They listened, but evidently did not understand it; he was too abstract. Snatching his watch from his pocket, he said: “James, what is that I hold in my hand?” “A watch, sir,” “a clock,” says another. “Do you all see it?” “Very well. Can any of you hear it tick? All listen now.” After a pause, “Yes sir, we hear it.” He then took off the case, and held the case in one hand, and the watch in the other. “Now, children, which is the watch? You see there are two which look like watches?” “The little one, in your right hand, sir?” “Very well. But how do you know that this is the watch?” “Very well, again. Now I will lay the case aside—put it away, there—down, down in my hat. Now let us see if you can hear the watch tick.” “Yes, sir, we hear it,” exclaimed several voices. “Well, the watch can tick, and go, and keep time, you see, when the case is taken off and put away in my hat. “So it is with you, children; your body is nothing but the case, the soul is inside. The case, the body, may be taken off and buried in the ground, and the soul will live and think just as well as this watch will go, as you see, when the case is off.” This made it plain, and even the youngest went home and told his mother that “his thoughts would tick after he was dead.” The foregoing is a fair specimen of the false teaching of those who profess to be instructors of the young. The plastic mind of childhood is impressed with the mould of error, and it is well nigh impossible to change the impression in after years. Brethren who send their children to Sunday schools should be careful to learn what impressions are made there, and if error is taking root, pluck it up at once, and plant in its stead the seed of truth. There are many other minds which swallow the lesson taught in the above illustration, as truthful, never doubting for a moment but what it is in harmony with the teachings of the Bible, philosophy and experience. For the benefit of such, we will examine it in the light of reason and Scripture for a short time. The lesson teaches that we are not unit in our natures, but dual—that is, that the body we see, feel, handle, talk and walk with, is not the real man, or child, but merely a case which covers the real, living, thinking, acting man inside. The watch which ticked and had life and motion was inside the case, and could manifest the same life and motion without the case as with it. But we object to the illustration as unfair. Unless our teacher can show us a soul which exhibits life, thought, and motion apart from the body, as the watch does apart from the case, we cannot receive his comparison as good. The truth is, we know the watch can tick without the case, because we can see and hear it. But how does he know the soul can tick apart from the body? He cannot give a single instance from the experience of 6,000 years past, nor from his own personal experience. It is a pure assumption on his part, without a particle of proof. Give us the proof. Perhaps he will claim that although he is unable to give us a visible instance which we can accept as satisfactory, yet he can prove it from the word of God. If he can we will accept it. But not a single proof can be found in the Bible. It is as silent as the grave concerning such a doctrine. It nowhere teaches that men's “thoughts tick after they are dead.” On the contrary it teaches that they perish. With David we say, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish.” Psa. 146 : 3, 4. Not so, says our teacher. In that very day his thoughts expand and grow amazingly, being released from the case, or body, which is returned to the earth. Thought is an attribute of the soul, and not of the body. Consequently, though we may lay away the body, or case in the grave, yet the soul, which is the thinking part of man, lives on, or as the child said, “his thoughts would tick after he was dead.” Here, we see, is a plain issue between David and our teacher. The teacher says that our thoughts do not perish when we are laid in the earth, but they tick on as before. David says, “in that very day they perish,” come to naught, or cease. Shall we believe the inspired writer, or shall we put our trust in “the son of man in whom there is no help?” The former, of course. Solomon, in contrasting the difference between the living and the dead, said, “the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything.” Eccl. 9 : 5. Our teacher would have us believe that dead men know as much as when living, because their thoughts do not cease. Again, Solomon says of those who are dead, that “their love and their hatred, and their envy is now perished.” Verse 6. If a man is incapable of loving after he is dead, how does this agree with the teaching that our dead friends are hovering over us, LOVING us, and caring for us? Either this teaching is false, or Solomon was wrong. Isaiah, 1160 years after Abraham died, wrote as follows: “Doubtless thou [God] art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us.” Chap. 63 : 16. If Abraham was in Heaven and his thoughts could tick with as much freedom then as before he died, how is it that he could be ignorant concerning his offspring? It must be as David says, when Abraham was laid in the cave of Machpelah, “in that very day his thoughts perished,” or as Solomon declared that being dead, “he knew not anything.” We might multiply testimony on this subject, but we forbear. We have quoted sufficient to show that a man's “thoughts do not tick after he is dead,” although a watch may tick without its case.—Restitution.