he did the introduction of the disembodied and conscious soul into a state of eternal blessedness, the Sadducees denied its reality by maintaining that no such thing as a soul existed after bodily dissolution. He then proved to them its reality in the following manner. You believe for Moses, to whose authority you implicitly bow, relates it that God said, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," and this, long after they died. But evidently he cannot be said to be the God of that which does not exist: therefore their souls must have been still alive. And if Jehovah was emphatically their God, their friend, of course he will show them his loving kindness. They are, then, in a conscious state of blessedness. The Savior does not imply that God said so much in substance, nor that Moses intended to teach, or even knew, any thing like it, but that, by adding to the passage cited a premise of his own, which his hearers granted to be true, he could deduce so much from it by a train of new and unanswerable reasoning. His opponents were compelled to admit the legitimacy of his argument, and, impressed by its surpassing beauty and force, were silenced, if not convinced. The credit of this cogent proof of human immortality, namely, that God's love for man is a pledge and warrant of his eternal blessedness a proof whose originality and significance set it far beyond all parallel is due to the dim gropings of no Hebrew prophet, but to the inspired insight of the great Founder of Christianity. The various passages yet unnoticed which purport to have been uttered by Jehovah or at his command, and which are urged to show that the reality of a retributive life after death is a revealed doctrine of the Old Testament, will be found, upon critical examination, either to owe their entire relevant force to mistranslation, or to be fairly refuted by the reasonings already advanced. Professor Stuart admits that he finds only one consideration to show that Moses had any idea of a future retribution; and that is, that the Egyptians expressly believed it; and he is not able to comprehend how Moses, who dwelt so long among them, should be ignorant of it.4 The reasoning is obviously inconsequential. It is not certain that the Egyptians held this doctrine in the time of Moses: it may have prevailed among them before or after, and not during, that period. If they believed it at that time, it may have been an esoteric doctrine, with which he did not become acquainted. If they believed it, and he knew it, he might have classed it with other heathen doctrines, and supposed it false. And, even if he himself believed it, he might possibly not have inculcated it upon the Israelites; and the question is, what he did actually teach, not what he knew.