they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day." So Psalm cxv. 17, "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence;" and Eccles. ix. 5, "For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything;" also ix. 10, "for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave (sheol), whither thou goest." Job, too (vii. 9), "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave (sheol) shall come up no more." Psalm xlix. 12, "Nevertheless, man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish." Thus also Eccles. iii. 19, "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other: yea, they have all one breath" (i.e, same word as translated "spirit" in verse 21, and chap. xii. 7); "so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity. (20) All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. (21) Who knoweth the spirit (or breath) of man that goeth upward, and the spirit (or breath) of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" Is this last verse an answer to any objection taken to what is stated in verse 19, that man and beast have all one spirit (breath)? Again, Eccles. xii 7, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it." This passage is quite conclusive against a separate conscious existence of the soul in any one place set apart for its reception, or of one soul going to one place and another to another. Man is dissolved into dust and spirit: the dust mingles again with the earth; the spirit in like manner, as spirit, returns to God: in other words, the life as life returns to its source. Such seems the idea. Again, the mercy of Jehovah is shown in consideration of the brief span of man's life, as Psalm lxxviii. 39, "For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away and cometh not again:" ciii. 14, "He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust;" and Psalm lxxxvii. 5 mentions the "slain that lie in the grave (kibr), whom thou (Jehovah) rememberest no more." How utterly opposed are all these clear statements to the paradise of unspeakable bliss, and the hell of unutterable woe, and the immortal soul and the bodily resurrection of the New Testament.