Religion and Immortality

''The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence. But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and for evermore." Psalm 115: 17, 18.

       I should be disposed to call this the earliest Jewish argument for the immortality of the soul. I understand the Psalmist to mean: "If the end of man were death, he would not during life have the instinct of praise. A race of mortals destined to nothing but mortality would be a race silent to religion. Men designed for the dust would not lift their eyes and their voices in worship. The fact that we do lift our eyes in worship is a proof that the grave is not our goal. Nor does it seem to me that the Psalmist reasons badly. Why should man have a faculty above his environment! If he is made exclusively for this world, why should he seek another! If death ends all, I have a sense here that I do not need. I need all other of my senses here. I need the eye, the ear, the hand, the taste, the thrill of joy, the instinct of fear - above all, that balance of the whole called common sense. But I do not need the sense of another world; it is useless to me, it impedes me. I require the earthly hunger to guide me to the earthly food; but if there be no future, where shall the heavenly hunger guide me! Only to the depths of despair. Where has that heavenly hunger come from? I cry for earthly bread because I am prepared for that bread, because that bread is prepared for me. But if there be no preparation for a future in my soul, why does my soul cry for it! Wherefore should an accent of praise come from those who go down into silence!
       I thank Thee, O Father, that there is a voice within me which contradicts the silence of death. I thank Thee for my necessity to pray. It is the only gift that comes to me direct from Thee. I never got it from the earth nor from aught that was earthly. It has been strongest in me just where the world was weakest. It has come to me most powerfully when the roses have faded and the trees are bereft of their green. It has often been the last survivor in my soul. It has lived when the world has died. It has come to me when the flower has lost its perfume and the bird has ceased to sing. Like the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, I have seen Thee when the cloud has fallen on all beside; I have seen Thee and I have cried to Thee. My cry to Thee has been like the ark in the flood; it has risen above a submerged world. Therefore, O Father, it is my olive branch of peace. It tells me I have something that will not die, not go down to silence. My rainbow of hope has come from my path of tears; I have learned in my tears what things the deluge cannot drown. They that praise Thee shall praise Thee forever.