IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
By B. M. Adams
BRO. SMITH: I was deeply interested in reading in the Review and Herald of the 8th ult., the extract from "Robert W. Landis on the Immortality of the Soul," together with your appended remarks. The contrast that you gave was well expressed of what revelation informs us in contradistinction to the author's inferential addenda of "a principle of intelligence." But from your iteration of a popular sentiment, when speaking of man as being "formed of the dust of the ground, his organism being perfect and complete, only waiting to be endowed with life; . . . the breathing into his nostrils the breath of life; the imparting to him the vital principle, which set the organism in motion,"—I infer that you apprehend that man was formed from the surface dust of the ground, like clay in the brick-maker's mould, and then the breath imparted. Much of the error that surrounds the popular and prevalent question of man's inherent and God-imparted immortality is, I apprehend, from the association of the special procedure of man's formation, and subsequent reception of his life from Deity, as different from all other beings of the creation. I think that this can easily be disproved from two plainly expressed passages of scripture; and that man derived his being in common with all animals, and came forth "out of the ground" like them and the grass, or other vegetable matter. For, In Gen. i, ii, and iii, we have the modus operandi of God's bringing forth [chap. i, 24, 25], of the beasts and the cattle; that the earth brought them forth. In chap. ii, 9, it says, "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow everything that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, the tree of life also, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Chap. iii, 19, says, respecting man, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," Man is thus proved to have come "out of the ground," from under the surface, in common with the animal and vegetable issues. But, in order to set forth the point more explicitly, I would now quote the authority of another writer than Moses (who now-a-days—both with professors of theology and geology—is not held in very high credit), and that is David, the psalmist and prophet, who thus philosophizes on his being [Ps. cxxxix, 14–16]; "I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works, that my soul knoweth right well. My substance (margin: strength or body) was not hid from thee when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect, and in thy book all my members were written (margin: or what days they should be fashioned), which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." The inquiry will occur here, Of whom was David speaking? Was it simply of his own personal individuality? That could not be so, strictly; for in Ps. v, 13 [sic] he alludes to himself as in "my mother's womb." But, I ask, is he not alluding to our common and head progenitor, Adam, the first? Undoubtedly, it seems to me. And in that aspect, does not this passage of holy writ show forth, most beautifully, as well as marvelously, how God wrought in the bowels of the earth, to bring together the particles of earth (dust), of iron, lime, &c., and combine them into man—as also in separate combination, each living thing—and caused them to appear on the surface, where the atmospheric air subtly set their organism in motion. His breath is the natural result of coming to the surface of the earth, "out of the ground." A learned Hebraist of this city informs me that the verse [Gen. ii, 7] which describes Adam's breathing, ought to be, and could be, clearly translated, "from out the ground man became a vigorous breather." To all of us who are familiar with the birth either of children or animals, the idea can be realized that the contact of any perfected organism with the atmosphere, instantly imparts "the breath of life," and "a living soul" is born. In this simple apprehensive view, it seems to me that man's special claim to being endowed with any peculiar attributes of "a principle of intelligence," at his creation, more than any other animal organism, is entirely disproved. But man in this day, prefers the evil knowledge that the old serpent beguiled our first mother to believe and receive, "Ye shall not surely die," in preference to the forewarned information of his Creator, that death would issue from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil," to whose poison and life-destroying banfulness, there was—and can be only one antidote—"the tree of life;" and man was expelled from the garden to prevent his living forever through eating of the latter. From that day to this, mankind seem bent on taking the assertion of the serpent as truth, rather than the word of God—that death is a result of sin, not only now, but in the beginning. Viewing this question—the life and death question—as I do, that life and death are set before us, and that life can be obtained only in and through Jesus Christ (Adam the second) the Life-Giver, how tremendous are the consequences outflowing from the doctrine of the father of lies, since they who believe not the word of the Son of God, "shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" (or them). For "our God is a consuming fire." But "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ his Son."