An Insane Soul | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 6, 1879

An Insane Soul.

A CERTAIN missionary, relating his trials over the popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul, thus wrote:—

"The illness of one of our members, a mother in Israel, brought the subject very solemnly before my mind. She had consumption, and was, to all appearance, in the very last stage of the disease, and I am satisfied a very large portion of her lung is excavated, yet she got well. At one time, during the progress of the disease, which lasted two years, she became quite insane, and had to be locked up, yet seldom did anything that was really sinful. But whenever she did do or say anything sinful the effect of the dread of it brought her instantly to sanity, and she would remain perfectly sane for from three-fourths of an hour to an hour, when she would become insane again. After her recovery she would relate this circumstance frequently.

"In view of this, I asked myself: Does the soul get insane? If it does, it can get insane after it leaves the body. Or does the soul leave the body when the brain is insane, and return to prevent the body from committing sin? We are usually told that the soul dislikes to be imprisoned in the body and would not return at all after being free. It appeared to me altogether an affection of the brain; and after all I could get no light about the existence of the soul as a separate entity."