g Pharisee makes this reply: "There were in a city two
artists: one made vases of water, the other made them of clay:
which was the more wondrous artist?" The Sadducee answered, "The
former." The Pharisee rejoins, "Cannot God, then, who formed man
of water, (gutta seminis humida,) much more re form him of clay?"
Such a method of reasoning is an irrelevant impertinence. God can
call Nebuchadnezzar from his long rest, and seat him on his old
throne again to morrow. What an absurdity to infer that therefore
he will do it! God can give us wings upon our bodies, and enable
us to fly on an exploring trip among the planets. Will he do it?
The question, we repeat, is not whether God has the power to raise
our dead bodies, but whether he has the will. To that question
since, as we have already seen, he has sent us no miraculous
revelation replying to it we can only find an answer by tracing
the indications of his intentions contained in reason, morals, and
nature.

One of the foremost arguments urged by the Fathers for the
resurrection was its supposed necessity for a just and complete
judgment. The body was involved and instrumental in all the sins
of the man: it must therefore bear part in his punishment. The
Rabbins tell this allegory: "In the day of judgment the body will
say, The soul alone is to blame: since it left me, I have lain
like a stone in the grave. The soul will retort, The body alone is
sinful: since released from it, I fly through the air like a bird.
The Judge will interpose with this myth: A king once had a
beautiful garden full of early fruits. A lame man and a blind man
were in it. Said the lame man to the blind man, Let me mount upon
your shoulders and pluck the fruit, and we will divide it. The
king accused them of theft; but they severally replied, the lame
man, How could I reach it? the blind man, How could I see it? The
king ordered the lame man to be placed upon the back of the blind
man, and in this position had them both scourged. So God in the
day of judgment will replace the soul in the body, and hurl them
both into hell together." There is a queer tradition among the
Mohammedans implying, singularly enough, the same general thought.
The Prophet's uncle, Hamzah, having been slain by Hind, daughter
of Atabah, the cursed woman cut out his liver and gnawed it with
fiendish joy; but, lest any of it should become incorporated with
her system and go to hell, the Most High made it as hard as a
stone;