The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price of a Soul, by William Jennings Bryan

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Title: The Price of a Soul

Author: William Jennings Bryan

Release Date: January 23, 2008 [EBook #24406]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF A SOUL ***

Produced by Andrew Sly

THE PRICE OF A SOUL

By

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

NEW YORK AND LONDON

1914

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

"The Price of a Soul" is an address delivered by Mr. Bryan, first
at the Northwestern Law School Banquet in Chicago, then as a
Commencement Oration at the Peirce School in Philadelphia and,
in 1909, extended into a lecture.

THE PRICE OF A SOUL

The fact that Christ dealt with this subject is proof conclusive that
it is important, for He never dealt with trivial things. When Christ
focused attention upon a theme it was because it was worthy of
consideration--and Christ weighed the soul. He presented the subject,
too, with surpassing force; no one will ever add emphasis to what He
said. He understood the value of the question in argument. If you
will examine the great orations delivered at crises in the world's
history, you will find that in nearly every case the speaker
condensed the whole subject into a question, and in that question
embodied what he regarded as an unanswerable argument. Christ used
the question to give force to the thought which he presented in
regard to the soul's value.

On one side He put the world and all that the world can contain--all the
wealth that one can accumulate, all the fame to which one can aspire,
and all the happiness that one can covet; and on the other side he
put the soul, and asked the question that has come ringing down the
centuries: "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul?"

There is no compromise here--no partial statement of the matter. He
leaves us to write one term of the equation ourselves. He gives us all
the time we desire, and allows the imagination to work to the limit,
and when we have gathered together into one sum all things but the
soul, He asks--What if you gain it all--_all_--ALL, a