I praised the Spirit's sevenfold flame, That now from all my spirit's frame, With might that last in death o'ercame, Had melted all its dross. "And now, O Lord of life," I cried, But thy dear love till now is tried, And where Thou art I dare abide, For ever safe in Thee!" THE LAST ENEMY. PART THE FIRST. I. Life. "O thou great Arbiter of life and death! Whose all-prolific beam late called me forth YOUNG. THE earliest record in the history of man could come only from his Maker. It is, that the Lord God determined to make man in His own image, "formed him of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." His existence was to be a type and symbol of Deity; but he had the same body, and the same animal life, with the beasts, the birds, the fishes, and the insects over whom he had dominion. The dust from which he was formed was not more precious than theirs; and the breath of life was their possession before he was created. In fact, the skeleton of the animal frame is composed of the same limestone which is scattered over the earth, from the depths of ocean to the ridges of the mountains. It is the beginning of animal structures in the coral and the shell; and it is the last remnant that is discovered in graves and catacombs. The great gaseous elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid, gather around it, with a little iron, sulphur, and quartz, and form in such proportions the fibrin of the muscles, the albumen of the brain and nerves, the gelatinous substances, and the fat, that of the whole weight of the body, when its parts are separated, three-fourths are water. Fearful and wonderful is the mechanism in which these chemical constituents meet; a mechanism so compact, so delicate, and so mighty; capable of being deranged by a touch, yet equal to the mightiest tasks of action and endurance. But the body of man was not formed to excel the other animal systems in their peculiar glories. It lacks the massy strength of the elephant and the whale it cannot rival the muscles of the lion: the antelope and the greyhound are far more graceful: man has no pinions to mount on high: he cannot live in the deep: the falcon has a keener eye, the grouse a quicker ear, the dog a more discerning smell, the bat a more susceptible touch; and of all the beasts the most hideous is that which most resembles him in form, gestures, and visage. His body, notwithstanding, has been fitted to be the house of a guest that could dwell in none beside. It is to stand erect, as becomes the ruler over all other earthly creatures; the eye can look to heaven; the mouth is made for speech, the hands for works of skill, the smooth, uncovered skin for expression and beauty of a higher kind than that of fleeces or plumes: man most easily weeps, and man alone can smile. Into this body, Omnipotence breathed the breath of life; that unseen, incomprehensible principle, through which motion, action, and sensibility began, never to cease. Like the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, the life of the first man contained in itself the lives of all future generations. At once the lungs. inhaled the vital air; the blood ran through the arteries and veins; the nerves bore every sensation to and fro; the muscles moved the whole frame; the heart throbbed within; the eye had its flash, the cheek its crimson, the mouth its smile: man had become a living soul, the chief of the animal creation. In most languages, the name of the soul is derived from a word which signifies wind or breath, as in the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin. For, independent motion is the first and last token of the presence of animal life, and the breath is the beginning of independent motion; and there is indeed a mysterious connexion between life and the air, a connexion perhaps deeper than that of mere physical adaptations. The creature that breathes has life, and, in the lower sense, has a soul: but the soul of man, which, on the side where it meets the body, is allied, but far, far superior to the life of all other animals, has also another side, where it meets the Spirit of God, and becomes itself a spirit. Body, and soul, and spirit form indeed a threefold division of our nature, which has been sanctioned by some of the profoundest thinkers of antiquity, by early Christian writers like Justin and Irenæus, and by the phraseology of St. Paul, who prays that all the three may be preserved blameless. In this division the second term is employed for that animal life which uses the organs of sense, and receives their impressions; and the third for that higher and more active part or operation of the inward man which is chiefly the divine image. But in the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin, the name of the spirit is also derived from words that express a wind or breath; and therefore the original signification of soul and spirit is essentially the same. It is the spirit, or it is the soul in those higher properties and acts which give it the name of the spirit, that knows, that imagines, that wills; that employs the tongue in speech, and the whole body in free and moral action. When man became a living soul, these powers were given to him; and they were given to no other earthly creature. These are the strength of his arm, the grace of his figure, the beauty of his countenance; for, if the imagination could quite dismiss these, the noblest or the loveliest form would but produce the impression of the tiger or the swan, or, were it possible, of a majestic or a blooming idiot. But when the divine breath gave life to the body of man, a spirit shone in his glance, spoke from his features, and acted through his free movements. He alone could know himself, the visible world and its invisible Maker, and ripen for ever in this knowledge. The moral image of God was in man alone; and before him was that path in which he might go on from perfection to perfection. Male and female were they made, that strength and sweetness might every where be united in exquisite joy; and that the broad earth might be replenished and subdued by a vast family, whose ancestral home should be Paradise. |