for such a state is impossible without morality and holiness. It must either be a state of annihilation, or of unconscious sleep. Whether Mr. Ballou can find either doctrine fully taught in the Bible, or fairly deducible from anything contained therein, we shall take the liberty to doubt. Here we see, the father of modern Universalism, stand up before his gazing followers, to solve their anxious inquiries about the future, the existence of the soul after the dissolution of the body, and with a countenance marked with labored thought and horrid agitation, he says, my brethren, I confess that I am as ignorant as a child about the particulars of the future-it is not certain whether man shall enjoy another state-it is not clear whether any one will be happy in heaven immediately after death, or all be rocked into an unconscious sleep until the resurrection-day. I pretend to know nothing of all this, and above all it is immaterial; all I do know about this, is, that none shall enter upon a moral state until after the resurrection. Can such dark and wretched doctrines be consoling and buoyant to a dying man? he battles the monster death, he stands on the crumbling verge of time, all is dark and dreary before him, no light and no knowledge of the future-whether his leap will be into the dark abyss of wo, or sink into nothing, or sleep unconsciously as a stone for ages, and then wake up, by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, are questions which Hosea Ballou cannot solve with certainty. But the Bible says, he that walketh while it is day, stumbleth not, the path of peace and the assurances of immortal bliss are so clear to those who walk uprightly, that they need not err, or be disconsolate in death.

Mr. LeFevre says, "There is no evidence of inan possessing any thing about him immortal. He does not consider the mind to possess the attribute of immortality; because, like the body, it may be destroyed by accident."

He predicates the happy existence of man in eternity as originating and being dependent on the resurrection of the dead. He says, "The future state of man, he considers, based on the resurrection, and that state will, according to the apostle, be glorious for all."

Thus we find that Balfour, Ballou, and LeFevre, look for the final salvation of the human race and their restoration to holiness and happiness, not to the fact that men are immortal, and that Christ has died for them, but to the event when the dead shall be raised to life; that they embrace the very doctrine, more or less valiantly, which Abner Kneeland held, that there was no "intermediate state of conscious existence between death and the resurrection; and of course death to him is an extinction of being; and all his ideas of a future state of existence, are predicated on the glorious doctrine of the resurrection."

We make a few quotations more to prove that there are some who embrace and boldly express the doctrine of materialism. A certain writer says, in one of their papers, "When the body dies and the nervous system with it, all these phenomena cease and are irrecoverably gone. We never possess after death, so far as our senses can inform us, the slightest evidence of the existence of any remaining being, which, connected with the body during life, is separated from it at death." "If the intellectual phenomena is the soul, and dependent upon corporeal organization, when the body dies, it will, of course, cease to exist.” Another writer declares, "Nor is it now admitted by Universalists generally, that man possesses two natures, &c." Mr. Ballou says, "A careful examination of our natural senses, as mediums of pleasure and pain, and health and sickness, will very naturally lead to a consideration of these same senses as being the origin, as far as we can see, of our thoughts and volitions." If our senses are the origin

of our thoughts and volition, then our senses constitute the mind; and since our senses, (viz. hearing, seeing, smelling, feeling, &c.,) are unquestionably material then the mind. is material, for they are identical. This is the doctrine of Materialism. Therefore, when the body dies, the man ceases to be and he returns to his original nothingnessall this flatly contradicts the immortality, or the future conscious existence of the soul; and therefore if man shall ever exist again it must be effected by the new-creating power of the resurrection.

Now we firmly believe, that all those who turn their thoughts and feet to the testimonies of Universalism, will legitimately be led to the above horrid conclusion-they will plunge into the stormy billows of infidel Materialism. That there are many who do not believe the views of Ballou and Balfour, especially among the common people, but who believe that man has a soul that is immortal, and that, immediately after death, he reaps a blissful reward, we have charity enough to accord to them. Yet after all, we believe, that many entertain scruples about the conscious existence. of the soul in the intermediate state, as well as of the soul's immortality, who, from prudential reasons, will never divulge their sentiments from the pulpit. Our belief of this is founded on the facts, that the leading influence of the denomination is that way, that the natural tendency of the system conducts to those conclusions, that those who favor the immortality of the soul deem the doctrine of but small importance, and that the advocates of Materialism are not disowned by the denomination.

To prosecute our inquiries on this important subject, we shall show that the doctrine of Materialism is false-that there will be a conscious existence between the dissolution of the body and the resurrection-that the wicked will not be annihilated-and that the doctrine of the immortality of

the soul is both reasonable and Scriptural-necessity will impose upon us the duty to study condensation and brevity.

1. We shall show that the doctrine of Materialism is false. By Materialism we understand, that system of philosophy which teaches that man has but one distinct nature, consisting of matter with different degrees of refinement, and that he is not a compound being, made up of soul and body. That the system of nerves is matter refined and so modified as to perform the office of thought, imagination, consciousness, and passions; and consequently when the body is dissolved in death and returns to its original elements, there is a cessation of our being, or conscious existence, and if ever man shall have a conscious existence hereafter, it must be effected by the new-creating power of the resurrection. For the reason, that Universalists put so much dependence upon the resurrection and look up to it as the only ground and hope of a happy immortality, we are induced to believe that the philosophy of Materialism exerts a far-reaching influence over the denomination, and that the great majority of the teachers are more or less tinctured with its principles. And so far as this philosophy affects the system of Universalism, it is affected with falsehood and absurdity.

A system of matter, however refined and modified, must ever be distinct in its properties and operations from that principle in man, which thinks and reasons, and is always active and full of life. He who denies a spiritual principle in man, in its nature superior and distinct from matter, asserts that the nervous system of man, is the organ of sensation, of thought, of imagination, of reasoning, of consciousness, &c. But is this position sound, philosophic, and truthful; or erroneous, absurd and false? What do we know of, and how do we secure an acquaintance with the properties and operations of matter? And how of mind

and the properties of the principle which thinks, feels, &c.? Are they distinct?

The Materialist defines his position in the following language: "That the thinking part of man is material-not immaterial, or spiritual; and that when a man is said to die, he does indeed die, and of course, ceases to think or be conscious." This must be true, that man shall cease to be after death; provided it is an undoubted fact, that man is possessed of but one essential nature; but if to his material body there is superadded a distinct principle from matter, superior and more excellent, then for aught reason may declare, man as a conscious being may survive the dissolution of the body. We know material substances by the properties inherent and immutable in them, but we form an acquaintance with mind in a different mode. Matter is known by the characteristics of solidity, extension, divisibility, inertia, &c.; but the thinking principle in man by none of these, but by intuitive consciousness, and the exercise of its powers. One class of laws, physical in their nature, are alone adapted to govern matter; and quite another class of laws are adapted and put into exercise to govern the mind, spiritual and moral in their nature. All matter is inert, and only acts as moved upon; but the mind has a selfdetermining power, is ever active and full of life. There is no period from the point of conscious existence, but that the mind of man has conscious exercises, whether the body is awake or asleep. Oft it mounts on the swift wings of imagination and scans revolving worlds-it surveys sea and land, hill and dale-it stands at the crater of the burning volcano, or amidst the tumbling and quaking earth while warred upon by maddened earthquakes. Life is also an essential attribute of the mind, but not so of matter. If life were essential to constitute material substances, it would be universally prevalent; but since this is obviously not