imals. Over
and over we are told that those who have died have no remembrance of
God, and cannot praise Him. The Bible speaks of death as the "land of
forgetfulness,"--the place of darkness, where all man's thoughts perish.
Nothing more than this could be said of the "animals that perish!"

Other Biblical writers referred to mankind as those who "dwell in houses
of clay," and Job says: "They are destroyed from morning to evening;
they perish forever, without any regarding it." In another place he
says: "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth
down to the grave shall come up no more." Again he speaks of "the land
of darkness and the shadow of death," and says: "Man dieth, and wasteth
away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail
from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: so man lieth down,
and riseth not." Job laments the pitiable conditions of his life, and
complains that life was ever granted to him, and that even death can
bring nothing to him except extinction.

Yet, if we examine Ecclesiastes, the book in which we find the single
passage upon which many people base a belief in the non-future existence
of animals, there are passages which are really no more positive as to
the future of mankind. For example, "I said in my heart concerning the
estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they
might see that they themselves are beasts. 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, so that a man
has no pre-eminence over a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one
place; all are of the dust, and all turn to the dust again." Again it is
said: "For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not
anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is
forgotten;" and "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy
might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in
the grave whither thou goest."

By interpreting these words literally, there is but one conclusion
relative to a future spiritual life, namely, that there is absolutely
no distinction between man and his "lower brother" animals, and that
when they die they all go to the same place. It is emphatically said
that after death man knows nothing, receives no reward, and can do no
work. Job has the same gloomy strain running through