Putting Immortality to Sleep.
If the physical man cannot think, and if an eternal personality does all the thinking, how can a little chloroform, administered to a wide-awake man, produce utter unconsciousness? Does it really put immortality to sleep? Not long ago, Dr. Bowman, of South Carolina, wishing an operation on an eye, in order to escape the pain that he would otherwise be obliged to endure, concluded to take chloroform. The last he remembered was a sensation of sleepiness, and the next thing he knew he was waking up, inquiring, “Haven’t they got ready yet?” Upon being told that it was “all over,” the question at once flashed forcibly upon his mind, “What was the condition of my immortal soul during this operation, if I have such a personal thinker that lives in the body, and thinks independent of the material man?” Can chloroform stop immortality from thinking? It certainly stops the real thinker from thinking, whether that is the man, or a personality within man. If the soul can think independent of the body, then no condition of the body can affect its thinking power. Immortality cannot be dependent upon mortality for intellect; then why should immortality stop thinking when mortality sleeps? We again ask, Can immortality be put to sleep by chloroform?—The Restitution.