but to
bolster up a foregone conclusion held merely from motives of
tradition.

The Jews had a favorite tradition, developed by their Rabbins in
many passages, that there was one small, almond shaped bone,
(supposed now to have been the bone called by anatomists the os
coccygis,) which was indestructible, and would form the nucleus
around which the rest of the body would gather at the time of the
resurrection. This bone, named Luz, was miraculously preserved
from demolition or decay. Pound it furiously on anvils with heavy
hammers of steel, burn it for ages in the fiercest furnaces, soak
it for centuries in the strongest solvents, all in vain: its magic
structure still remained. So the Talmud tells. "Even as there is a
round dry grain In a plant's skeleton, which, being buried, Can
raise the herb's green body up again; So is there such in man, a
seed shaped bone, Aldabaron, call'd by the Hebrews Luz, Which,
being laid into the ground, will bear, After three thousand years,
the grass of flesh, The bloody, soul possessed weed called man."

The Jews did not, as these singular lines represent, suppose this
bone was a germ which after long burial would fructify by a
natural process and bear a perfect body: they regarded it only as
a nucleus around which the Messiah would by a miracle compel the
decomposed flesh to return as in its pristine life. All that the
Jews say of Luz the Mohammedans repeat of the bone Al Ajib.

This conceit of superstition has been developed by a Christian
author of considerable reputation into a theory of a natural
resurrection. The work of Mr. Samuel Drew on the "Identity and
General Resurrection of the Human Body" has been quite a standard
work on the subject of which it treats. Mr. Drew believes there is
a germ in the body which slowly ripens and prepares the
resurrection body in the grave. As a seed must be buried for a
season in order to spring up in perfect life, so must the human
body be buried till the day of judgment. During this period it is
not idle, but is busily getting ready for its consummation. He
says, "There are four distinct stages through which those parts
constituting the identity of the body must necessarily pass in
order to their attainment of complete perfection beyond the grave.
The first of these stages is that of its elementary principles;
the second is that of an embryo in the womb; the third is that of
its union with an immaterial spirit, and with the fluctuating
po