The Price of a Soul

By WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1914
“The Price of a Soul” is an address delivered by Mr. Bryan, first at the Northwestern Law School Banquet in Chicago, then as a Commencement Oration at the Peirce School in Philadelphia and, in 1909, extended into a lecture.
The fact that Christ dealt with this subject is proof conclusive that it is important, for He never dealt with trivial things. When Christ focused attention upon a theme it was because it was worthy of consideration—and Christ weighed the soul. He presented the subject, too, with surpassing force; no one will ever add emphasis to what He said. He understood the value of the question in argument. If you will examine the great orations delivered at crises in the world's history, you will find that in nearly every case the speaker condensed the whole subject into a question, and in that question embodied what he regarded as an unanswerable argument. Christ used the question to give force to the thought which he presented in regard to the soul's value.
On one side He put the world and all that the world can contain—all the wealth that one can accumulate, all the fame to which one can aspire, and all the happiness that one can covet; and on the other side he put the soul, and asked the question that has come ringing down the centuries: “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
There is no compromise here—no partial statement of the matter. He leaves us to write one term of the equation ourselves. He gives us all the time we desire, and allows the imagination to work to the limit, and when we have gathered together into one sum all things but the soul, He asks—What if you gain it all— all —ALL, and lose the soul? What is the profit?
Some have thought the soul question a question of the next world only, but it is a question of this world also; some have thought the soul question a Sabbath-day question only, but it is a week-day question as well; some have thought the soul question a question for the ministers alone, but it is a question which we all must meet. Every day and every week, every month and every year, from the time we reach the period of accountability until we die, we—each of us—all of us, weigh the soul.