umerous and so influential,
so profound and so obvious, that it is impossible they should
escape the knowledge of any thinking person. Indeed, the
distinction has found a recognition everywhere among men, from the
ignorant savage, whose instincts and imagination shadow forth a
dim world in which the impalpable images of the departed dwell, to
the philosopher of piercing intellect and universal culture,

"Whose lore detects beneath our crumbling clay A soul, exiled, and
journeying back to day."

"Labor not for the meat which perisheth," Jesus exhorts his
followers, "but labor for the meat which endureth unto everlasting
life." The body and the luxury that pampers it shall perish, but
the spirit and the love that feeds it shall abide forever.

We now pass to examine some metaphorical terms often erroneously
interpreted as conveying merely their literal force. Every one
familiar with the language of the New Testament must remember how
repeatedly the body and the soul, or the flesh and the spirit, are
set in direct opposition to each other, sin being referred to the
former, righteousness to the latter. "I know that in my flesh
there is no good thing; but with my mind I delight in the law of
God." "The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit
lusteth against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the
other." All this language and it is extensively used in the
epistles is quite generally understood in a fixed, literal sense;
whereas it was employed by its authors in a fluctuating,
figurative sense, as the critical student can hardly help
perceiving. We will state the real substance of Christian teaching
and phraseology on this point in two general formulas, and then
proceed to illustrate them. First, both the body and the soul may
be corrupt, lawless, empty of Divine belief, full of restlessness
and suffering, in a state of moral death; or both may be pure,
obedient, acceptable in the sight of God, full of faith, peace,
and joy, in a state of genuine life. Secondly, whatever tends in
any way to the former result to make man guilty, feeble, and
wretched, to deaden his spiritual sensibilities, to keep him from
union with God and from immortal reliances is variously
personified as "the Flesh," "Sin," "Death," "Mammon," "the World,"
"the Law of the Members," "the Law of Sin and Death;" whatever, on
the contrary, tends in any way to the latter result to purify man,
to intensify his moral powers, to exalt and qui