Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

RECONSTRUCTING THE NATURAL ORDER381to be connected with it. But in point of fact theheathen belief as to the lot of the soul itself was quitevague and undetermined. The philosophic opinionjust cited was that the mind in its pre-existent statehad, at least originally, not been severed from theuniversal mind, and apparently in its post-existentstate it was, at any rate in the end, to return to itsfirst condition. Thus the conception of man evenduring his earthly life as a personal being was imperfect.With the union of the soul and body at anyrate the personality disappeared. This was the philosophicbelief at the highest point which it reached.But what was the popular belief? It was a struggleof human desire and affection, a whispering too ofconscience, and the lingering echo of old traditionagainst the fear that death was the last determiningline of each human life. For the Greek the touchingwords of Moschus express an universal plaint:" 0 muse of Sicily, begin the dirge,Woe-woe-the mallows dying in the garden,Or the green parsley and the florid aniseRevive again,, spring up another year.But we, the great, the mighty, and the wise,Once laid in death, lie voiceless in earth's Losom,A long, a boundless, unawakened sleep."And Catullus mourns for the whole Latin race :" Suns set, and suns can rise again,But our brief light of day once goneYields to one endless night of sleep."And the plaint too often turned into the carouse : letus eat and drink, let us crown ourselves with roses,let us love, for to-morrow we die. That we may besure will be the practical result with the vast majority,if they can bring themselves to believe that after all