Another striking passage, bearing upon the same point, is the declaration of Paul, that _Jesus Christ hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel_. The apostle does not surely mean that Christians are freed from what is commonly called death, since universal experience shows that animal life in them is as sure to be extinguished, and the soul to be separated from the body, as in others. But so different is death now, since Christ has brought to light a future and an immortal life, and by the sacrifice of himself shown how the heart may be reconciled to God, and sin forgiven, and faith inspired, that, in fact, while the shadow of death still occupies the passage to eternity, its substance is gone. That death, which sin introduced, Christ has abolished, because, by his sacrifice and his grace, he has conquered sin. Upon the whole, though we may not be convinced that either of the theories that have been explained is directly taught in the Scriptures, or can be shown to be infallibly true, yet they are sustained by probable evidence enough to remove the apprehension that there is any real discrepancy between geology and revelation on the subject of death. Between these theories there is but a slight difference. They are in fact but modifications of the same general principles; and I say it would be more philosophical to admit the truth of either of them, than a disagreement between science and Scripture, since the truth of both geology and revelation is sustained by such a mass of independent evidence. An objection, however, may be stated against both of these theories, on the ground that they seem to imply that death would have existed in the world, irrespective of the sin of man, and therefore they lessen our sense of the evil of sin. It may be doubted, I think, whether these theories do necessarily imply that there was no connection between the sin of man and the introduction of death into the world. But, admitting that they do, is it certain that inadequate views of sin are the result? For poetic effect, we admire the sublime sentimentalism of Milton:-- "Earth felt the wound; and Nature, from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost."