DURING the past few years some leading physicians in America have been conducting a series of strange experiments with dead and dying people in order to discover if there is really such a thing as a soul!
Their experiments have led them to believe that there is, and that it weighs half-an-ounce!
Carefully adjusted scales of a large size were erected in one of the hospitals at Boston.
Persons known to be dying were wheeled into the weighing-room on cots, which were placed on the scale. When the heart stopped beating and death ensued, it was found in every case that the scales registered about half an ounce less, and from this it was concluded that the half-ounce lost at the moment of death represents the weight of the human soul!
You smile, perhaps, and say that the Yankee physicians are welcome to the results of their researches.
Be it so. But remember that the soul—your soul—has weight and worth, though no humanly devised balances can measure it.
The Bible, however, does not speak of your soul as a tangible part of your being like your brain, your heart and your lungs. Your soul, in contrast to your body, is you, yourself. When you die, the lifeless form that is laid in the coffin is you no longer. Indeed, it never really was you; it was but the house of flesh and blood in which the real you dwelt.
Now in the eyes of your Creator your soul is precious. Indeed, it is of priceless worth. In His esteem the man who barters his soul for the wealth of all the world has made a sorry bargain. He, who would sell his soul for success, for fame, for gold, for anything, would be a loser by the transaction.
What makes the soul of such transcendent worth is its capability for eternal bliss.
The most intelligent of the animal creation —the horse, the dog, the elephant—cannot vie with man in this. No creature on earth has the capability that the human soul has for knowing God, enjoying His love, and being supremely happy in His presence forever.
To lose your soul means to lose all that!
But it means more. For your soul is not only capable of infinite joy it is capable of infinite misery. One or the other must be its destiny.
Let me repeat that your soul is yourself. It is you that we are speaking about. You will either spend eternity amid the unceasing delights of heaven or the indescribable woes of hell. You, YOU, YOU!
Now what do you propose to do? If your soul is of no worth in your eyes, let me assure you that there is One who knows its value.
Your Creator, rather than leave you to perish without hope, has taken flesh and blood, and as a Man has died for you. His soul was made an offering for sin. He experienced all the bitterness of sin's dread penalty (though ever sinless Himself), and made atonement to God for sinners. In the glorious results of that atonement it is open for you to share.
You have but to take your place before Him as a sinner indeed. Open your lips, not to justify but to condemn yourself. Then lift the eye of faith to Christ. Believe that He died for you. Believe that His blood can cleanse your sins away. And put your whole confidence in Him.
He loves your soul, and will gladly save it. That is, He loves you, and will gladly save you.
Trusting Him, death will have no terror for you. If soul and body have their partnership dissolved by death, it will only be for a little while. For the resurrection morning will dawn, when your soul will again be clothed with the body, no longer a body liable to suffering and death, but a body like Christ's.
What, then, dost thou think of thy soul, reader? At what price dost thou value it? What consideration dost thou give it?
H. P. B.