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Show 264 TEAVELS AND ADVENTUEES IN THE FAE WEST. Christian world, so called, who do not believe that man had a pre-existence. It is believed, by the religious world, that man, both body and spirit, begins to live about the time that he is born into this world, or a little before ; that then is the beginning of life. They believe that the Lord, by a direct act of creation, formed, in the first place, man out of the dust of the ground; and they believe that man is possessed of both body and spirit, by the union of which he became a living creature. Suppose we admit this doctrine concerning the formation of the body from the dust, then how was the spirit formed? Why, says one, we suppose it was made by a direct act of creation, by the Almighty Himself; that He moulded the spirit of man, formed and finished it in a proper likeness to inhabit the tabernacle He had made out of the dust. Have you any account of this in the Bible ? Do the Scriptures declare that the spirit was formed at the time the tabernacle was made ? No. All the tabernacles of the children of men that were ever formed, from remote generations, from the days of Adam to this time, have been formed out of the earth. We are of the earth, earthy. The tabernacle has been organized according to certain principles and laws of organization, with bones, and flesh, and sinews, and skin. Now, where do you suppose all these tabernacles got their spirits! Does the Lord make a new spirit every time a tabernacle is made ? If so, the work of creation, according to the belief of Christendom, did not cease on the seventh day. If we admit their views, the Lord must be. continually making spirits to inhabit all the tabernacles of the children of men ; He must make something like one thousand millions of spirits every century; He must he |