THE SOUL AND THE BODY.
Suggestion:—A watch and case (preferably a double case) from which the works can be easily removed will answer the purpose. Jewelers often have such old watches that they would be glad to sell for a trifle, or even to give away. A small old clock from which the works can be removed would also answer the same purpose.
Keep up the play idea with the children. Older persons may weary of repetition, but to children their play is always new and interesting. After "driving to church", being shown to seats, and after some opening services, let one of the children preach in his or her own language the truth which most impressed them in last Sunday's object sermon, or the truth which they remember from the morning sermon in church, or from any passage of Scripture which they may prefer. No better school of oratory was ever formed, even though the primary purpose is devotional and religious.
NOW, boys and girls, what is this that I hold in my hand? (Many voices, "A watch.") I expected that you would say it was a watch. Every boy knows a watch when he sees it, and every boy desires to have a watch of his own—one which he can carry in his pocket, and one which will tell him the time of day whenever he looks at it.
Watch-case.
But you cannot be sure, even from appearances, that this is absolutely a watch. It might be only a watch-case. In order to tell whether it is a watch, let us open it. After all, it is not a watch. It is only a watch-case. You would not wish to spend your money when you expect to get a watch, and on reaching home find that you have been deceived, and that you had nothing but a watch-case.
Now, boys and girls, what is this? (holding up the works of the watch). "A watch." This time you are right, this is a watch. It is a watch without a case around it. Now we will put the works into the case, and then we will have a complete watch. The works and the case together more properly constitute a watch.
A Watch-case and Works.
You have, I suppose, been at a funeral, and have seen the body of the dead man or woman or child lying in the coffin. Unless somebody has told you differently, you may possibly have thought the person whom you had known was lying there in the coffin. But this was not the fact. Every man, woman and child consists of a soul and a body, and when a person dies the soul returns to God, who gave it. God made our body out of the dust of the ground, and when the spirit leaves the body, it is a dead body, and it begins to decay, and soon becomes offensive, and so we bury the body out of our sight, putting it again in the ground, and finally it moulders back again to dust.
It is not so, however, with the soul. That is a spirit. When God had made Adam out of the dust of the ground, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now, this soul never dies. God has created it to live forever and ever, throughout all eternity. Those who are good and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ will be received at death to dwell forever with the Lord. And those who are wicked and do not repent of their sins, God will banish forever from His presence; for sin is hateful in the sight of God, who cannot look upon it with any degree of allowance.
Case and Works Separated.
The moment you look upon a body, without being able to tell how, you can nevertheless quickly distinguish between one who is asleep and one who is really dead. Even animals can tell a dead body. When a dead horse lies along the road, it is very difficult to drive a live horse near to the dead one. The living horse knows at once that the other is dead, although we do not know how he knows it.
Now, I want to show you that death does not affect the existence of the soul. I will now lift these works out of the watch case.
I now hold the case in my left hand, and the works in my right hand. As these works constitute the real watch, so the soul constitutes the real person, and as these wheels and hands continue to move, and to keep time regularly even after they have been removed from the case; so the soul, when God removes it from the body, continues to exist and to be possessed of all that makes the reasoning, thinking, immortal and indestructible being of man. I might take this case, which I hold in my left hand, and bury it in the ground, but the works would not be affected by this fact, but would continue to run on just the same. Suppose I were to leave this case buried in the ground until it had all rusted away. Then suppose that, as a chemist I could gather up all these particles again and make them anew into a watch case, and then put the works back into the case which had been restored or made anew; that would represent the resurrection of the body, and the reuniting of the soul with the body, which will take place at the resurrection day.
Some years ago there was a great chemist, whose name was Faraday. It happened one time in his laboratory that one of the students, by accident, knocked from the table a silver cup, which fell into a vessel of acid. The acid immediately destroyed or dissolved it, and the silver all disappeared, the same as sugar dissolves or melts in a tumbler of water. When Professor Faraday came in and was told what had happened, he took some chemicals and poured them into the acid in which the silver had disappeared. As soon as these two chemicals came together, the acid began to release the silver, and particle by particle the silver settled at the bottom of the vessel. The acid was then poured off and the silver was all carefully gathered up and sent to a silversmith, who melted the silver and made it anew into a silver cup of the same form, design and beauty. It was the same cup made anew. So, my young friends, our bodies may dissolve in the grave and entirely disappear, but God is able to raise them up again. He tells us in the Bible that these bodies which are buried in corruption shall be raised in incorruption, and that these mortal bodies shall put on immortality.
I trust that I have illustrated to you how the soul and the body are separated when we die, and God's Word assures us that they shall be reunited again in the morning of the resurrection, for all these dead bodies "shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth." It matters not whether they were buried in the ground, or in the water, they shall arise from every sea and from every cemetery, and every grave in all the world, and shall live anew and forever, either in happiness with God in heaven, or in misery with Satan in eternal banishment from God's presence.
Questions.—What are the principal parts of a watch? Which part is like the body? Which part is like the soul? Which is the real watch? Could the works alone run and keep time without the case? When does the soul become separated from the body? Does death affect the existence and life of the soul? If a watch case were buried and rusted away, could it be made new again? Does the Bible say our bodies are also to be raised again from the grave? What is that raising up of the body called? Will it make any difference whether a body was buried in the sea or in the earth? ("The sea shall give up its dead"). Whose voice shall call the body to immortality? Will the immortal body ever die?