By Beverly Carradine
THE SOUL
AMONG the mysteries there is none profounder than the human soul.
Everything about it savors of the unknown. The inexplorable and
unexplainable meet us at every turn in spite of much that is known, and
that is being discovered.
Every night hundreds if not thousands of telescopes are pointed at distant
stars and planets in the endeavor to understand better the nature, and to
discover new secrets about these faraway ramblers in space. Some things
have been learned about them, but much remains to be found out. The
vastness of their distance from us is the explanation of our ignorance
concerning them.
In like manner the gaze of innumerable eyes and the energies of countless
minds are directed in investigation of the human soul. Hour after hour, and
minute after minute, the telescopes of thought and study are turned upon
it, and while much has been discovered, much remains to be revealed
concerning the invisible stranger, that, unlike the stars, is in a few inches
or feet of us, and yet in many respects is as profoundly unknown.
Mystery after mystery rolls up before us in the questions, What is spirit,
and how can it act independently of matter? And when does the soul begin
its existence; and is it generated or created? Does it exist seminally, or is
it a direct creation of God in the womb?
Then, where is its location in the body? That it is there we do not doubt,
but in what part of the body? Does it fill the physical frame, or is it in the
perineal gland, as Wesley thought, or in the brain, or nearer the heart, or
where?
Then other puzzling thoughts arise as to the nature of the soul's existence
when separated from the body, and whether it has powers which
correspond to speech, sight, hearing and other faculties, as well as members
of the body. And has it a shape? And does it possess color? etc.,
etc.
But everywhere we are confronted with closed doors, which are not only
shut, but locked, and refuse to open to our knock and call. An unsolvable
mystery is near us yes, in us; and there is no more answer to us from that
viewless inhabitant about some things we want to know, than if it was a
dweller upon Jupiter or Saturn.
And yet we know something about this invisible tenant of the body. We
have sailed along part of the coast lines, explored a few of the bays, and
stood upon some of the capes and hilltops. We have made a little chart
concerning what has been discovered, with a wavering line showing what
we know, and great white spaces marked 'unknown,' 'unexplored,' etc.,
declaring what we do not know. We mention a few things that we know:
First, It is distinct from the body.
We discover that it has longings and desires that are not physical, but
spiritual. In the midst of a life of bodily gratification, it is itself perfectly
miserable. The bodies lies down satisfied, while this nature starts up
unsatisfied, full of unrest, and plaintive inward cries. This is the soul,
which has a hunger as keen as that of the body, which thirsts and wants
rest like the physical being, and failing to obtain will surely lead the man
to despair and deeds of desperation.
Second, It is a thinking something.
We have a thought nature in us. It commenced running away back yonder
at its beginning, and is destined to run forever. We are told that when
reason is dethroned and one tramps the cell of a lunatic, yet thought goes
on; wild, disordered, disconnected, it is true, but not the less is it thought.
The mental machine works on faithfully.
As far as the soul has been traced and followed from the body, it is found
to be thinking. It thinks in death, and, according to Christ, thinks after
death. The rich man's agony in hell sprang partly from the fact that he
remembered his brethren on earth, and the effect of his life upon them.
We can conceive of no greater torture than to be compelled to endure the
slow, deliberate, steady, faithful grindings of the mind machine,
which reproduces all the scenes and events of a sorrowful, sinful, misspent
life, and keeps this up forever.
Third, It is a beautiful something.
As we have said, we neither know its shape or color. The general opinion
is that it is white. A confirmation of this thought is that whenever the soul
is aroused, there is a flash of light in the face.
But of one thing we feel assured, and that is, that every human spirit is
beautiful. Doubtless in this respect the king has no advantage over the
beggar, the civilized man over the heathen, nor one race above another.
Made in God's image, they are all compelled to be lovely.
As we view the human family, after an external fashion, we see great
differences produced in face and form by clothing, old age, disease,
poverty and suffering. And so consciously and unconsciously a very great
variety of treatment is rendered to people. But the eye of God pierces
these externals of accident and misfortune, and sees within every human
form a beautiful soul. And those who are filled with God's Spirit have a
measure of the same discernment and recognize the loveliness and
preciousness of this hidden something within, called a spirit. As Angelo
saw an angel in a stone, so they see a beautiful possibility beneath a hard
and unattractive exterior. They know that an invaluable gem is in these
crumbling walls of clay.
The soul is lovely. Its Maker, and the likeness in which it was fashioned,
proves that. But also, its swift and vanishing appearance in the face puts
the matter beyond question. Who has not seen it tremble on the lip, laugh
in the eye, and at times stretch out its arms to you?
When the soul is allowed to have continued rulership over the animal life
all have observed the cultured, attractive look that appears stamped on the
countenance. Then there are moments when under the mighty influence of
truth perceived or received, some great deed of moral heroism, some
sacrifice to man or God, some great influx of the divine life and glory, the
soul appears fairly looking at you out of the face, which is in itself
transfigured by its glorious presence. It is noticeable that even the homely
become attractive, and the naturally beautiful sweep beyond that into an
angelic appearance, when the soul, aroused by the Holy Ghost, stands
gazing out into the world through the face, as one stands and looks out
from a window.
Fourth, It is a lonely something.
It came into the world alone; it leaves the world alone, and is made to
stand alone before the Judgment Seat of Christ. It is fenced off from all
other beings in a body which encases it, and looks out of its clay prison
upon the world, as a man on an island gazes upon the ocean washing
around him.
This fact, in addition to others, produces the indescribably solitary feeling
which every soul has felt with bitterest pangs, and at times came near
sinking under.
Fifth, It is a friendless something.
We do not mean that a soul does not love, and is not loved. We do not say
there are no such things as attachments and warm, true friendships. Such a
statement would be absurd and false. And yet we reiterate the fact of the
profound friendlessness of the human spirit.
When we recall that a deep religious experience is to place one at once into
a place where opposition comes alike from friend and foe; when we
remember that our own loved ones, with a mistaken affection, try to bring
us into amusements, employments and places which are simply ruin and
death to the spiritual life, some idea of the soul's friendlessness begins to
dawn on the reader.
Sixth, It is a restless something.
No argument is needed here. A glance within, and the study of human life
without, confirm the statement. This invisible spirit wants rest, and is
after it. Its actions prove it.
The trails in the forest lead down to springs and brooks. The physical
thirst drives animal life to the seeking, finding and frequent return to
streams of water. In like manner the soul, impelled, not to say driven, by
its own yearnings, is seen going in every direction for satisfaction. It
leaves its trail everywhere. Its track is found by the side of every earthly
pool and cistern of pleasure. The pity is that it makes such amazing
blunders in searching after spiritual rest and gratification. The marvel is
that an animal is truer in its instincts than a spirit in its reasonings and
judgments.
The only perfect rest for the soul is to be found in God. It was made for
Him, is restless without him, and will be wretched as well as undone
forever if it does not find Him. It seems to require years for the soul to
discover that the eye and ear are never satisfied with seeing and hearing,
that the spirit may be infatuated for a brief while, but never inwardly
contented and filled by an earthly object. When the discovery takes place,
then the life of the misanthrope, and recluse or the suicide is often the
result. Tell the disappointed, soured, embittered man that the cause of his
unhappiness, heart emptiness, and life failure is that he has missed God,
and likely as not he will laugh the informer to scorn.
Astronomy tells of numerous small bodies flying through space and
circling about the sun. They originally came from that great shining orb,
and their only hope of rest is to fall back into the place from whence they
came.
The parable is plain. We came from God. He saw to it in our creation that
enough of His nature was implanted in us to make us restless and
unhappy until we returned to Him, fell in his embrace, and found that
blessed repose and perfect heart-contentedness only to be realized in God
Himself, through Jesus Christ, His Son.
[Transcriber Note: Either the printer or author mistakenly placed
two 'Sixth' points in the original text. The second of those two
'Sixth' points follows this inserted comment.]
Sixth, It is a dreadfully imperiled something.
There is no danger in the universe, frightful as it may seem, that can be
compared for a moment to the peril which threatens the soul. The ruin and
destruction of a soul demands, as some one has said, that the heavens are
veiled, and the stars hung with crepe.
Let the reader think for a moment of what a world we are living in. It is a
vision of the weak flying from the strong, every form of life trying to
escape some kind of danger and death. The insect is avoiding the bird, the
dove is flying from the hawk, the fish is rushing from the angler, the smaller
animals running from the larger, the larger from the hunter, and destruction
and death is on every breeze. The trap, dead fall, baited hook,net, spear,
sword, musket and cannon are seen everywhere, and blood is
trickling in every field and wood, and life is being gasped out everywhere.
Dreadful as is the spectacle, yet the heart-chilling thought at once comes
up, that none of these dangers and deaths can be likened to the peril and
ruin that threaten the soul. A doom and destruction is on the track, and in
full pursuit of the human spirit, which transcends in horror all the others
beyond words to describe.
A world of devils are unified to accomplish this destruction. Sin in every
conceivable form is at work to get control of and damn the spirit made in
God's image. Temptation is lurking on every side to spring upon and drag
it down. Traps, pitfalls, baited hooks, painted decoys, every imaginable
device of hell, is set to deceive, bewilder, overcome and undo forever the
soul made in the image of God. The wonder is how any one can escape,
And none would be saved but for the grace of God.
Seventh, It is a boundless something.
We mean that the invisible Spirit within seems to be endowed with
inexhaustible capacities. As long as we observe its life it is learning. Its
possibilities seem to have no end. In a strange sense it has bottomless
depths and topless heights.
Men but faintly realize the value of the soul. If they did, better care would
be taken of it. Christ knows its worth, and declares that a man could be the
eternal loser, if he exchanged it for the whole world. According to the
Bible, the soul is more precious than the entire earth, with its continents
and seas, its forests and harvests, its gold and silver mines, and stores of
precious gems.
The way that the soul can receive knowledge of all kinds; the
systematizing and classifying; the ticketing, labeling and putting away in
mental drawers for future use; the constant addition of facts with no sense
of plethora, but ardent desires for more and boundless room for more,
constitutes one of the amazing things about the human spirit.
It is evident that the soul from its very nature can make the choice of
having a bottomless abyss experience within, and an eternally sinking in
itself; or it can have the topless height, and be forever rising in all that
is pure, true, holy and divine.
If a life of sin is chosen, the man will find, sooner or later, that he has a
soundless pit within him; and the steady fall from day to day, the constant
sinking from mean, meaner to meanest, from vile, viler to vilest, with
yawning depths far beneath the present evil doing, and to which he feels
he is going - all this will serve in a measure to show the boundless
capacities of the soul.
We have a river in the South, whose broad powerful current slices off
hundreds and thousands of acres of land, sometimes whole plantations at a
time, sucks them up in its swirl, and sweeps them far off into the distant
ocean. Then we have a stream in the mountains which suddenly
disappears and carries with it whatever is floating on its bosom, never to
be seen any more. Besides, we have read of a hole in a large natural cavern
that seems to be bottomless: you may drop a stone and listen for the fall,
but you will listen in vain. Again, we all know that if a rock could be cast
from the earth, and laws of gravitation suspended, that rock would fall
forever. Into the deep, black, empty, infinite space which underlies the
universe, it would enter, and sink, sink, sink, forever and forever.
It requires all these figures and illustrations to show what is meant by a
fallen and falling soul. We have all seen sin, like a Mississippi River,
cutting away the spiritual acres of a man's life. Truth was washed away;
honor, honesty and purity were swallowed up; reputation departed; and
character disappeared.
We have also seen iniquity like a sinking hole in the spiritual life.
Everything said to and done for the transgressor went immediately out of
sight. Sermons, prayers, conversations, entreaties, warnings, rebukes,
tears, all alike fell into the cavernous character, and were heard of no more.
We were calling into and trying to fill up a bottomless pit. There seemed
nothing within to catch and hold up a Gospel message or personal appeal.
Then we have seen the sinner falling like the stone descended through
infinite space.
There is no doubt that when Christ spoke of hell being a bottomless pit,
he was thinking not so much of locality as a spiritual state or condition.
His mind was upon the everlasting sinking into darker moral depths of a
lost soul.
This falling, while going on in life, is unquestionably retarded by the
restraining grace of God, and by many extraneous things, like music,
literature, public opinion and church influence. But the hour comes when
the soul, leaving the body and entering eternity, will find itself stripped
of all these things, and is left to follow its own bent, which is a perpetual
inclination to sink. There is no doubt that when the spirit of a man has
broken beyond the law of spiritual gravitation and commenced falling, it
will continue to fall eternally. The centripetal power of God's grace has
been cast off; the centrifugal force of self-will set on fire by sin alone
operates, and means that the man gets farther from God every minute,
hour, day, year, century, cycle and age, and through eternity itself. He is
falling, falling, falling; lower and lower; deeper and deeper; sinking on
himself; sinking in himself; and finding to his horror that he himself is a
bottomless abyss.
On the other hand, if the soul chooses God and good, then we begin to see
what is meant by topless heights in the spirit life.
All of us have marked the improvement, development and steady
advancement of a soul after its conversion and sanctification. The progress
in some instances was remarkable and in others wonderful. When filled
with the Spirit we walk in the light steadily and faithfully with God, there
is a constant growth and rise in the spiritual life all the while. People see it,
and the soul feels it. It stands thrilled with the consciousness of its
unfolding powers; while the months and years are accentuated and marked
by the realization of greater wisdom, deeper love, increased gentleness and
tenderness, with a commensurate firmness and power in the things of God.
A few years ago, at a college commencement, we saw a schoolgirl who had
come to the place of learning from a back country neighborhood. Both face
and manner showed the mental and social lack. Grace, knowledge and
instruction had separate works to do in her behalf. About that time her
soul was converted and sanctified, and then followed the training of mind
and heart and enrichment of both. Some months ago we met the same girl,
12 but had to be introduced to her. The crude schoolgirl had disappeared, and
in her place stood an elegant young woman with refined manners, cultured
mind, deeply spiritual face, and noble Christian life. And yet this
marvelous change is but the beginning. Eternity lies before this young
maiden, with its everlasting progress and development, and as one of the
daughters of the King, she will actually add grace to His palace, and with
an increasing glory and honor forever.
In one of our largest cities a burglar, who was imprisoned for theft, was
converted to God in a cell while reading one of Moody's sermons in a
newspaper. After his release, he was sanctified and joined the M. E.
Church, South. His life became irreproachable, and his face familiar at a
number of holiness camp-meetings. He had been such a bold criminal, and
such a terror to the police, that for months and even years after his change,
the officers of the law kept watchful eyes upon him. But all at last marked
the change in his life, and above all the wonderful transformation in his
face. We have seen two photographs taken of him, one while he was in the
depths of sin, and the other after he was sanctified and a devoted member
of the church. The contrast was simply amazing, and constituted a
powerful sermon in itself. The contrast was so dark, lowering, vicious,
animal-like, and even devil-like, that it was hard to believe that the other
photograph, showing a noble, open countenance, full of gracious light and
love, could be the same man. And yet it was, and thousands who have
seen the pictures and know the man as did the writer, can vouch for it.
And yet this improvement is but the beginning. Other heights of grace still
tower above this redeemed man, and remain for all redeemed men. There
are peaks of knowledge, dizzy elevations of glory, and mountain tops of
grace and goodness and love and holiness, that shall be seen ascending one
above another through the never-ending ages of eternity. And we are to
ascend them forever. Topless heights in heaven over against bottomless
depths in Hell. An eternal ascension of the soul in holiness and happiness
above, as well as the everlasting sinking of the spirit in wickedness and
wretchedness below.
It fairly dazes the mind to think what God's redeemed ones will be and
look like in Heaven, a thousand or ten thousand or a million years from
now. It does not yet appear what we shall be; we only are told we shall be
13 like Him. But what will He, the King of Glory, be like? So the mystery is
not cleared up. The Glory has not yet been described.
A hint comes to us in Revelation, when John falls down to worship a
transcendently glorious being, whom he sees and mistakes for a divine
personage. The rebuking words to him were, 'See thou do it not; for I am
thy fellow-servant, one of thy brethren, the prophets.'
May God help the reader to guard and preserve a soul which has such a
wonderful appearance and is to enter upon such a glorious destiny above
the stars.
