The root and trunk of all this, is the “taken-for-granted” position that the soul is immortal. But search through your Bible and see if you find it so. See if you will not rather be prepared to exclaim with the eminent commentator, Olshausen, that “the doctrine of the ‘immortality of the soul,’ and the name, are _alike unknown to the entire Bible_.” (Comment on 1 Cor. 15:19, 20.) See if you can find the death that never dies, and never-dying soul. If not, we ask you to reject the idea at once as a most dangerous and destructive error. Men are thus rejecting it. The leaven is working in the public mind. Men are growing suspicious of the truth of a declaration, first uttered by a not over-truthful character in Eden, perpetuated thence through heathenism, and at last through the medium of the mother of harlots, disseminated through all the veins and channels of Orthodoxy. But truth will work its way up, however deeply the rubbish may have been heaped upon it; and before the bright rising of its light, all antiquated superstitions and traditionary dogmas, will lie exposed in their native deformity. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE CLAIMS OF PHILOSOPHY. After the Bible, what? When once the word of God pronounces upon a question, what further evidence is needed to sustain the position, or what evidence is strong enough to break its decision? What can human reason, science, and philosophy, do for a theory upon which the Scriptures have written “Ichabod”? We have, in previous chapters, examined the teaching of the Bible on the whole subject of man’s creation, nature, death, intermediate state, and final doom. We have found that man was not created absolutely mortal or immortal, but relatively both: immortality was within his reach, and mortality lay as a danger in his path. He sinned and became absolutely mortal. Then death becomes an unconscious sleep in the grave, and his destiny beyond the tomb, if he does not secure through Christ, eternal life, is an utter loss of existence. But there are some who think that reason, science, and philosophy, are sufficient to disprove these conclusions; or, at least, that they are so strong that the Bible record must be made to harmonize with the claims drawn from these sources. But they forget that much that we call reason is in the sight of God “foolishness,” that there is a philosophy which the Bible pronounces “vain,” and some kinds of science which it says are “falsely so called.” We are willing to grant philosophy the privilege of trying to substantiate its claims. It may boast like Goliah, but it will be found weaker than Belshazzar before the handwriting on the wall. _The soul immortal._ It is claimed that the soul is immaterial, and cannot therefore be destroyed, and hence must be immortal. Luther Lee says:-- “If God himself has made the soul immaterial, he cannot destroy it by bringing material agents to act upon it.”