The Negro A Beast In The Image Of GOD

22 MAN, AND THE NEGRO,
that his physical and mental organisms, like theirs,
must
be subject to accident, disease, decay, and final
dissolution. Hence, the idea that Adam would
have lived
on indefinitely, and perhaps never have experienced
physical death, had he not violated Divine
law, is too absurd for serious consideration. Man like
the lower orders of animal life, and like the plants has
his germ, his formative period, his youth, his maturity,
his decline, and his physical dissolution.
" The breath of life" which God "breathed into"
man's "nostrils" was spiritual, immortal life;
lifewdiich,
like God's life, never dies;
" and man became a livingsoul."
This spiritual, immortal life— this living- soul—
was a new element in the material universe. Hence,
man, with whose physical and mental structure it was
combined, is properly
described as a creation.
Thus, the three creations— matter, mind and spiritual
life— were combined in man ;
that sublime creature
whom God honored in the creation by the bestowal of
his likeness and his image, and to whom he confided
dominion over the works of his hands. Well might
David exclaim in describing God's creation of man:
"Thou mad'st him a little lower than the angels, and
has crowned him with glory
and honor."
In obedience to Divine command, the waters and
the earth brought forth the fish and fowl and beast after
their kind. But God created man in his own image,
upon a plan carefully matured and as carefully preserved
m his "book." Well may we exclaim in the Ian-