"I. In These modern days, when faith has grown cold or vanished altogether, there are people, and even lads of fifteen or sixteen years of age, who, when they are exhorted to reflect from time to time upon death and eternity, merely reply: "I am no child to be frightened with nursery tales; who knows whether death is not annihilation!"
Words like these, when uttered by youthful lips, fill us truly with horror and pity. But how is it possible to speak in this way? Simply because, in the case of those who this express themselves, the belief in one of the fundamental truths of all religion, the belief in the immortality of the soul, has been destroyed.
Since you, dear reader, must go forth into like and be exposed to the dangers of unbelief, it is of the utmost importance that the conviction that "death is not annihilation" should be deeply rooted in your heart; wherefore, ponder carefully the principal grounds upon which this conviction is based.
II. Death is not annihilation, but the soul lives on after the death of the body. It is immortal. The very nature of the soul proves this; it is a simple, indivisible being; it can not be separated into parts, or destroyed.
Now, however, the unbelievers, the so-called materialists, appear upon the scene, and say: "Man does not possess a soul independent of the body, a soul which has its own separate existence." And as proof (?) of this they assert that since a violent blow upon the head destroys consciousness, the power of thought is therefore dependent upon the brain; the brain being the cause of thought, no spiritual soul is needed for this purpose.
This conclusion certainly appears plausible, but it contains a grievous fallacy. In a similar manner I could "PROVE" that there is no sun! Just tell me whether, if you close the shutters of your room, the light does not disappear from it; but in proportion as you re-open them, the light streams in again more or less brightly. Therefore the light in the room depends upon the window, the window is the cause of it; hence no other cause is needed, no sun! Thus my young friend, if you had not seen the sun for yourself, you might believe that there is not a sun at all. In both instances, the fallacy of the deduction or conclusion is obvious. Just as certainly as there is a sun, so certainly does man posses an immortal soul, with an independent existence of its own.
III. The conviction of all nations years witness to the immortality of the human soul; it is inscribed by the hand of nature in the heart of every man in characters which can never be effaced. Nature can never deceive. False representations concerning the future life of the soul by no means prove that it is not immortal.
This belief in the immortality of the soul may indeed be dislodged from the head, but never torn out of the heart. "It is difficult," a simple person once remarked to me, "to believe that those whom we love do not merely die, but are dissolved into nothingness." And, truly, all our feelings rise in revolt and the voice we hear within us pretests against the assumption that death is annihilation.
IV. No, no, thus it can not be: there shall be a "Wiedersehen" of our kindred; we shall meet again those whom we have loved and lost. If, indeed, there were no such future meeting, we should be justified in raising an accusing voice to Heaven, and exclaiming: "Thou hast deceived us by implanting affections within our breast which are only doomed to be disappointed!" Is, then, everything to be ended at the close of this short life, so replete often with suffering, and is only nothingness to remain! Are love and friendship to be mere empty words, are virtue and justice to exist only in imagination?
What then! The robber and the robbed, the traitor to his country and he who gives his life for his fatherland, the martyr and his torturer, the unnatural son and the model daughter, are they all to share the same fate in annihilation ----- in the same nothingness? No, it is impossible even to imagine anything so preposterous.
V. But all has not been said. We have within us a heart which yearns after endless, everlasting happiness! Happiness! the mere mention of this word makes our heart beat more quickly, and stirs our being to its inmost depths. This craving for happiness, this intense longing, must be destined to be satisfied at some future period. But where? Where is this endless and complete happiness for which we long so ardently --- where is it to be found? Everything teaches us, everything proves to us, that it can not be found upon earth. Our heart is, indeed, not very large, but the universe does not suffice to fill it. Caesar, to whom at one time half the world was subject, said with melancholy discontent: "Is that all?"
Therefore, if the longing for happiness is so firmly rooted in our heart, and yet can never find complete or permanent satisfaction upon earth, it follows that it must be possible for man to attain it after this life is ended, that means that death is not annihilation. This reasoning should suffice.
VI. But we have kept the most conclusive argument to the last. We have the words of Christ Himself as a pledge that there is a future life; and He speaks as follows: "The just shall go into life everlasting, and the wicked unto everlasting punishment."
There is not death! What seems so is transition.
This life of mortal breath
is but a suburb of the life elision
Whose portal we call death.
-Longfellow, Resignation."
(Wiedersehen German [auf ˈviːdərzeːən]
sentence substitute
goodbye, until we see each other again)
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