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86 A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.

that for a while is tabernacled in the flesh. It is the soul which hears, sees, feels, thinks, desires, speaks, and acts. The body is no more than a marvelous material organism which lives from the soul, in which the soul dwells, and by which the soul remains in the natural world, and takes part in its concerns.

" When man is said to die, it is only the body which really dies. The reason is, that the body is no longer suited to be a dwelling-place for the soul. The mar- velous and mysterious links which previously united the soul to the body are broken. The soul takes its flight from the body ; and as its life departs, the body dies. The body being dead, truly means that the soul has left it. Now that its life is gone, the body, subject to the wonderful processes of natural chemis- try, will waste away, decompose and mingle with the dust. 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' is, therefore, properly said when the body is placed in the grave.

" But the real man, the soul, is not destroyed by quitting the body. It remains a living, thinking, lov- ing, conscious being, and dwells in the spiritual world. If the man has been good, pious, and holy, if he has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and has striven to keep his holy commandments, he will, like Lazarus, be * carried by angels into Abraham's bosom ; ' that is, he will go to heaven. He will enter into and dwell in the heavenly mansions about which Jesus spake

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