The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life

A HELL of fire and brimstone has been, perhaps still is, the most terrible of the superstitions of the world. We propose to give a historic sketch of the popular representations...

IF the first men were conscious spirits who, at the command of God, dropped from the skies into organic forms of matter, or who were created here on an exalted plane of insight...

IN approaching the teachings of the Savior himself concerning the future fate of man, we should throw off the weight of creeds and prejudices, and, by the aid of all the applian...

THE principal difficulty in arriving at the system of thought and faith in the mind of Paul arises from the fragmentary character of his extant writings. They are not complete t...

ACCORDING to the imagining of some speculative geologists, perhaps this earth first floated in the abyss as a volume of vapor, wreathing its enormous folds of mist in fantastic...

IN THE leading nations of Christendom, the belief in the immortality of the soul has for some time past obviously been weakening. The number of those who assail the belief incre...

JUDAISM so largely supplied the circumstantial and doctrinal germs out of which dogmatic Christianity grew, that we cannot thoroughly understand the Christian belief in a final...

OF all the single events that ever were supposed to have occurred in the world, perhaps the most august in its moral associations and the most stupendous in its lineal effects,...

THE power of the old religions was for centuries concentrated in the Mysteries. These were recondite institutions, sometimes wielded by the state, sometimes by a priesthood, som...

THE folly and paganism of some of the Church dogmas, the rapacious haughtiness of its spirit, the tyranny of its rule, and the immoral character of many of its practices, had of...

IN the Hindu views of the fate of the human soul, metaphysical subtlety and imaginative vastness, intellect and fancy, slavish tradition and audacious speculation, besotted ritu...

ON the one extreme, a large majority of Christian scholars have asserted that the doctrine of a retributive immortality is clearly taught throughout the Old Testament. Able writ...

WE are now to see if we can determine and explain what were the views of the Apostle John upon the subject of death and life, condemnation and salvation, the resurrection and im...

THE disembodied soul, as conceived by the Greeks, and after them by the Romans, is material, but of so thin a contexture that it cannot be felt with the hands. It is exhaled wit...

BEFORE attempting to exhibit the doctrine of a future life contained in the Apocalypse, we propose to give a brief account of what is contained, relating to this subject, in the...

DEATH is not an entity, but an event; not a force, but a state. Life is the positive experience, death the negation. Yet in nearly every literature death has been personified, w...

LET US first notice the uncommon amount of meaning which Christ and the apostolic writers usually put into the words "death," "life," and other kindred terms. These words are sc...

A DOCTRINE widely prevalent asserts that, at the termination of this probationary epoch, Christ will appear with an army of angels in the clouds of heaven, descend, and set up h...

THE doctrine that there is a material place of torment destined to be the eternal abode of the wicked after death is based on the language of the Bible, supported by the aggrega...

THE period of time covered by the present chapter reaches from the close of the tenth century to the middle of the sixteenth, from the first full establishment of the Roman Cath...

THE conceptions and fore feelings of immortality which men have entertained have generally been accompanied by a sense of uncertainty in regard to the nature of that inheritance...

MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE. IN discussing the ethics of the doctrine of a future life a subject here amazingly neglected, there more amazingly maltreated, and now...

THE name of Zoroaster is connected, either as author or as reviser, with that remarkable system of rites and doctrines which constituted the religion of the ancient Iranians, an...

THE Epistle to the Hebrews was written by some person who was originally a Jew, afterwards a zealous Christian. He was unquestionably a man of remarkable talent and eloquence an...

IT is the purpose of the following chapter to describe the originating supports of the common belief in a future life; not to probe the depth and test the value of the various g...

BEFORE examining, in their multifarious detail, the special thoughts and fancies respecting a future life prevalent in different nations and times, it may be well to take a sort...

PAUSING, in a thoughtful hour, on that mount of observation whence the whole prospect of life is visible, what a solemn vision greets us! We see the vast procession of existence...

WITH reference to the present subject, we shall consider the period of the Church Fathers as including the nine centuries succeeding the close of the apostolic age. It extends f...

NO other doctrine has exerted so extensive, controlling, and permanent an influence upon mankind as that of the metempsychosis, the notion that when the soul leaves the body it...

SURVEYING the thought of mankind upon the subject of a future life, as thus far examined, one can hardly fail to be struck by the multitudinous variety of opinions and pictures...

OF all the sorrows incident to human life, none is so penetrating to gentle hearts as that which fills them with aching regrets, and, for a time, writes hollowness and vanity on...

IN entering upon an investigation of the thoughts of the New Testament writers concerning the fate of man after his bodily dissolution, we may commence by glancing at the variou...

HEAVEN, in the crude fancy of mankind, has generally been conceived as a definite, exclusive, material abode; either some elysian clime on the surface of the earth; or some happ...

THE starting point in the Talmud on this subject is with the effects of sin upon the human race. Man was made radiant, pure, immortal, in the image of God. By sin he was obscure...

WE read in the New Testament that the heavens and the earth are reserved unto fire against the day of judgment, when they shall be burned up, and all be made new. It is said tha...

PROCEEDING now to give an account of the fancies and opinions in regard to a future life which have been prevalent, in different ages, in various nations of the earth, it will b...

IN attempting to understand the conceptions of the ancient inhabitants of Egypt on the subject of a future life, we are first met by the inquiry why they took such great pains t...

although they say that journey extends to a distance of four days and nights and is wholly invisible. They light and tend that watch fire as a memorial of their departed compani...

ISLAM has been a mighty power in the earth since the middle of the seventh century. A more energetic and trenchant faith than it was for eight hundred years has not appeared amo...

MANY considerations combine to make it seem likely that at an early period a migration took place from Southern Asia to Northern Europe, which constituted the commencement of wh...

ALTHOUGH the living form and written annals of Etruria perished thousands of years ago, and although but slight references to her affairs have come down to us in the documents o...

A COMPANION of Solomon once said to him, "Give me, O king of wisdom, a maxim equally applicable on all occasions, that I may fortify myself with it against the caprices of fortu...

THAT strange body of men, commonly known as the Druids, who constituted what may, with some correctness, be called the Celtic priesthood, were the recognised religious teachers...

almost every page of the Koran abounds in such tints and tones as the following. "The unbelievers shall be companions of hell fire forever." "Those who disbelieve we will surely...