" [7]
We have bodies, "we are spirits." "I am a soul," said Epictetus, "dragging
about a corpse." The body is the mere perishable form of the immortal
essence. Plato concluded that if the ways of God are to be justified,
there must be a future life.
To the aged in either case death is a release. The Bible dwells most
forcibly on the blessing of peace. "My peace I give unto you: not as the
world giveth, give I unto you." Heaven is described as a place where the
wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
But I suppose every one must have asked himself in what can the pleasures
of heaven consist.
"For all we know
Of what the blessed do above
Is that they sing, and that they love." [8]
It would indeed accord with few men's ideal that there should be any
"struggle for existence" in heaven. We should then be little better off
than we are now. This world is very beautiful, if we could only enjoy it
in peace. And yet mere passive existence--mere vegetation--would in itself
offer few attractions.
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