But the Reformation commences its work. It soon begins to be seen that the Romish church is the corrupt and disreputable party, and those against whom it vents its rage are the good, the pure, and the true. The work goes on among the most enlightened nations, the reputation of the church going down, and that of the martyrs coming up, until the corruptions of the papal abomination are fully exposed, and that huge system of iniquity stands before the world in all its naked deformity, while the martyrs are vindicated from all the aspersions under which that Antichristian church had sought to bury them. Then it was seen that they had suffered, not for being vile and criminal, but “for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.” Then their praises were sung, their virtues admired, their fortitude applauded, their names honored, and their memory cherished. And thus it is even to this day. White robes have thus been given unto every one of them. The whole trouble on such passages as this we conceive to arise from the theological definition of the word soul: From that definition, one is led to suppose that this text speaks of an immaterial, invisible, immortal essence in man, which soars into its coveted freedom on the death of its hindrance and clog, the mortal body. No instance of the occurrence of the word in the original Hebrew or Greek will sustain such a definition. It oftenest means life; and is not unfrequently rendered, person. It applies to the dead as well as to the living, as may be seen by reference to Gen. 2:7, where the word, “living,” need not have been expressed were life an inseparable attribute of the soul; and to Num. 19:13, where the Hebrew Concordance reads, “dead soul.” The reader is also referred to the previous chapter on Soul and Spirit. From the definitions there given, it is evident that the word soul may mean, and the context requires that it here should mean, simply the martyrs, those who had been slain; the expression, “the souls of them,” being used to designate the whole person. They were represented to John as having been slain upon the altar of papal sacrifice on this earth, and lying dead beneath it. So Dr. Clarke, on this passage, says, “The altar is upon earth, not in Heaven.” They certainly were not alive when John saw them under the fifth seal; for he again brings to view the same company in almost the same language, and assures us that the first time they live after their martyrdom is at the resurrection of the just. Rev. 20:4-6. Lying there, victims of papal blood-thirstiness and oppression, the great wrong, of which their sacrifice was the evidence, called upon God for vengeance. They cried, or their blood cried, even as Abel’s blood cried to God from the ground. Thus another stronghold of the immortality of the soul must be surrendered to a harmonious interpretation, and the plain teaching, of the word of God.