Our Souls

 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36 The saying of our Lord Jesus Christ, which stands at the head of this page, ought to ring in our ears like a trumpet-blast. It concerns our highest and best interests. It concerns OUR SOULS. What a solemn question these words of Scripture contain! What a mighty sum of profit and loss they propound to us for calculation! Where is the accountant who could reckon it up? Where is the clever arithmetician who would not be baffled by that sum? "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" I wish to offer a few plain remarks, to enforce and illustrate the question which the Lord Jesus asks in the passage before us. I invite the serious attention of all who read this volume. May all who take it up feel more deeply than they ever yet felt, the value of an immortal soul! It is the first step toward heaven to find out the true worth of our souls. The first remark I have to make is this– I. Every one of us has an undying soul. I am not ashamed to begin my paper with these words. I dare say that they sound strange and foolish to some readers. I dare say that some will exclaim, "Who knows not such things as these? Who ever thinks of doubting that we have souls?" But I cannot forget that the world is just now fixing its attention on material things to a most extravagant extent. We live in an age of progress—an age of steam-engines and machinery, of locomotion and invention. We live in an age when the multitude are increasingly absorbed in earthly things—in railways, and docks, and mines, and commerce, and trade, and banks, and shops, and cotton, and corn, and iron, and gold. We live in an age when there is a false glare on the things of time, and a great mist over the things of eternity. In an age like this it is the bounden duty of the ministers of Christ to fall back upon first principles. Necessity is laid upon us. Woe is unto us, if we do not press home on men our Lord's question about the soul! Woe is unto us, if we do not cry aloud, "This present world is not all. The life that we now live in the flesh is not the only life. There is a life to come. We have souls!" Let us establish it in our minds as a great fact, that we all carry within our bosoms something that will never die. This body of ours, which takes up so much of our thoughts and time, to warm it, dress it, feed it, and make it comfortable—this body alone is not all the man. It is but the lodging of a noble tenant, and that tenant is the immortal soul! The death which each of us has one day to die does not make an end of the man. All is not over when the last breath is drawn, and the doctor's last visit has been paid—when the coffin is screwed down, and the funeral preparations are made— when "ashes to ashes and dust to dust" has been pronounced over the grave—when our place in the world is filled up, and the gap made by our absence from society is no longer noticed. No—all is not over then! The spirit of man still lives on! Everyone has within him an undying soul! I do not stop to prove this. It would be a mere waste of time. There is a conscience in all mankind, which is worth a thousand metaphysical arguments. There is a voice within, which speaks out loudly at times, and will be heard—a voice which tells us, whether we like it or not, that we have, every one of us, an undying soul. What though we cannot see our souls? Are there not millions of things in existence which we cannot see with the naked eye? Who that has looked through the telescope or microscope can doubt that this is the case? What though we cannot see our souls? We can feel them! When we are alone, on the bed of sickness, and the world is shut out—when we watch by the death-bed of a friend—when we see those whom we love lowered into the grave—at times like these, who does not know the feelings which come across men's minds? Who does not know that in hours like these, something rises in the heart, telling us that there is a life to come, and that all, from the highest to the lowest, have undying souls? You may go all over the world, and take the evidence of every age and time. You will never receive but one answer on this subject. You will find some nations buried in degrading superstition, and mad after idols. You will find others sunk in the darkest ignorance, and utterly unacquainted with the true God. But you will not find a nation or people among whom there is not some consciousness that there is a life to come. The deserted temples of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the Druid remains of our own native land, the splendid pagodas of Hindostan, the Fetish worship of Africa, the funeral ceremonies of the New Zealand chiefs, the conjurers' tents among the North American Indian tribes—all, all speak with the same voice, and tell the same story. Far down in the human heart, beneath the rubbish heaped up by the Fall, there is an inscription which nothing can efface—telling us that this world is not all, and that every one of us has an undying soul! I do not stop to prove that men have souls, but I do ask every reader of this paper to keep it ever before his mind. Perhaps your lot is cast in the midst of some busy city. You see around you an endless struggle for temporal things. Hurry, bustle, and business hem you in on every side. I can well believe you are sometimes tempted to think that this world is everything, and the body is all that is worth caring for. But resist the temptation, and cast it behind you. Say to yourself every morning when you rise, and every night when you lie down, "This world is passing away. The life that I now live is not all. There is something beside business, and money, and pleasure, and commerce, and trade. There is a life to come. I have an immortal soul!" I do not stop to prove the point, but I do ask every reader to realize the dignity and responsibility of having a soul. Yes—realize the fact, that in your soul you have the greatest treasure which God has committed to your charge. Know that in your soul you have a pearl above all price, compared to which all earthly possessions are trifles light as air. The horse that wins the Derby or the Leger, attracts the attention of thousands—painters paint it, and engravers engrave it, and vast sums of money turn on its achievements. Yet the weakest infant in a working man's family, is far more important in God's sight than that horse. The spirit of the animal goes downwards; but that infant has an immortal soul. The pictures at our great exhibitions are visited by admiring crowds—people gaze on them with wonder, and talk with rapture of the "immortal works" of Rubens, Titian, and other great masters. But there is no immortality about these things. The earth, and all its works shall be burned up! The little babe that cries in a garret, and knows nothing of fine art, shall outlive all those pictures, for it has a soul which shall never die! There shall be a time when the Pyramids and the Parthenon shall alike crumble to nothing—when Windsor Castle and Westminster Abbey shall be cast down and pass away—when the sun shall cease to shine, and the moon no more give her light. But the soul of the humblest laborer is of far more enduring substance. It shall survive the crash of an expiring universe, and live on to all eternity. Realize, I say once more, the responsibility and dignity of having a never-dying soul. You may be poor in this world—but you have a soul. You may be sickly and weak in body—but you have a soul. You may not be a king, or a queen, or a duke, or an earl— yet you have a soul. The soul is the part of us which God chiefly regards. The soul is "the man." The soul which is in man is the most important thing about him. I do not stop to prove that men have souls, but I do ask all men to live as if they believed it. Live as if you really believed that we were not sent into the world merely to spin cotton, and grow corn, and hoard up gold—but to "glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." Read your Bible, and become acquainted with its contents. Seek the Lord in prayer, and pour out your heart before Him. Go to a place of worship regularly, and hear the Gospel preached. And if any ask you the reason why—if wife, or child, or companion say, "What are you about?"—answer them boldly, like a man, and say, "I do these things because I have a soul."