moods of mind, do I look down upon my limbs, the house of clay
that contains me, the gross flesh and blood of which my frame is
composed, and wonder at a lodging, poorly fitted to entertain so
divine a guest!

A still more important chapter in the history of the human mind
has its origin in these considerations. Hence it is that
unenlightened man, in almost all ages and countries, has been
induced, independently of divine revelation, to regard death, the
most awful event to which we are subject, as not being the
termination of his existence. We see the body of our friend
become insensible, and remain without motion, or any external
indication of what we call life. We can shut it up in an
apartment, and visit it from day to day. If we had perseverance
enough, and could so far conquer the repugnance and humiliating
feeling with which the experiment would be attended, we might
follow step by step the process of decomposition and
putrefaction, and observe by what degrees the "dust returned unto
earth as it was." But, in spite of this demonstration of the
senses, man still believes that there is something in him that
lives after death. The mind is so infinitely superior in
character to this case of flesh that incloses it, that he cannot
persuade himself that it and the body perish together.

There are two considerations, the force of which made man a
religious animal. The first is, his proneness to ascribe
hostility or benevolent intention to every thing of a memorable
sort that occurs to him in the order of nature. The second is
that of which I have just treated, the superior dignity of mind
over body. This, we persuade ourselves, shall subsist uninjured