In the first place, we should value a human soul, because it is in itself superior to any thing else in the world. The whole world, indeed, with every thing in it, is good, for God made it. But He proceeded in a very different manner in the creation of the material world from what He did when He made the soul. He made the world, the trees, the rivers, the lights of heaven, the living creatures on the earth, by the mere word of his power. "God said, Be light made. And light was made." [Footnote 155]
[Footnote 155: Gen. i. 3.]
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind. And it was so." [Footnote 156] But when He made the soul, the Scriptures tell us, "He breathed into the face of man and he became a living soul." [Footnote 157]
[Footnote 156: Gen. i. 12.]
[Footnote 157: Gen. i. 26.]
By this action we are to understand that God communicated to man a nature kindred to his own divinity. The Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, is the uncreated Spirit of God, eternally breathing forth and proceeding from the Father and the Son; and God, when He breathed into the face of man, signified that He imparted to man a created spirit kindred to his own eternal Spirit. The Holy Scriptures, indeed, expressly tell us that such was the case: "Let us make man to our image and our likeness." [Footnote 158]
[Footnote 158: Gen. i. 26, 27.]
This likeness consisted in the possession of understanding and free will, the power of knowledge and love—the two great attributes of God himself. You are, then, my brethren, endowed with a soul which raises you immeasurably above God's material creation. You have a soul made after God's image. This is the source of your power. The two things go together in Holy Scripture. "Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth." [Footnote 159] In the state of original innocence, no doubt, this dominion was more perfect, but even now it exists in a great degree. "Every kind of beast, and of birds, and of serpents, and of the rest, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind." [Footnote 160]
[Footnote 159: Gen. ii. 7.]