The gift of a soul.

I just finished reading Ben-Hur : A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace.  This book is a difficult read due to the high vocabulary level but it also has colorful characters and a great plot.  The book is set in the time of Christ's life.  The main character, Judah Ben Hur, is anxious to help Christ set-up a political kingdom and overthrow the Roman government.    Judah, through a long series of events meets Balthasar, one of the three wise men.  Balthasar understands that Christ's Kingdom will be a spiritual one.  The following discussion ensues as Balthasar mentors the young Ben-Hur: (this is long but very profound).

Balthasar speaks:
" I cannot tell you when the idea of a Soul in every man had its origin.  Most likely the first parents brought it with them out of the garden in which they had their first dwelling.  We all do know, however, that it has never perished entirely out of mind.  By some peoples it was lost, but not by all; in some ages it dulled and faded; in others it was overwhelmed with doubts; but, in great goodness, God kept sending us at intervals mighty intellects to argue it back to faith and hope.

"Why should there be a Soul in every man?  Look, O son of Hur-for one moment look at the necessity of such a device.  To lie down and die, and be no more- no more forever-time never was when man wished for such an end; nor has the man ever been who did not in his heart promise himself something better.  The monuments of the nations are all protests against nothingness after death;  so are statues and inscriptions; so is history.  The greatest of our Egyptian kings had his effigy cut out of a hill of solid rock.  Day after day he went with a host in chariots to see the work; at last it was finished, never effigy so grand, so enduring; it looked like him-the features were his, faithful even in expression.  Now may we not think of him saying in that moment of pride, 'Let Death come; there is an after-life for me!  He had his wish.  The statue is there yet.

"But what is the after-life he thus secured?  Only a recollection by men-a glory unsubstantial as moonshine on the brow of the great bust: a story in stone-nothing more.  Meantime what has become of the king?  There is an embalmed body up in the royal tombs which once was his- an effigy not so fair to look at as the other out in the Desert.  But where, O son of Hur, where is the king himself?  Is he fallen into nothingness?  Two thousand years have gone since he was a man alive as you and I are.  Was his last breath the end of him?

" To say yes would be to accuse God; let us rather accept his better plan of attaining life after death for us-actual life, I mean-the something more than a place in mortal memory; life with going and coming, with sensation, with knowledge, with power and all appreciation; life eternal in the term through it may be with changes of condition.

"Ask you what God's plan is?  The gift of a Soul to each of us at birth, with this simple law-there shall be no immortality except through the Soul...

"...A word as to the pleasure there is in the thought of a Soul in each of us.  In the first place, it robs death of its terrors by making dying a change for the better, and burial but the planting of a seed from which there will spring a new life... behold me as I am -weak, weary, old, shrunken in body, graceless; look at my wrinkled face, think of my failing senses, listen to my shrilled voice.  Ah! what happiness to me in the promise that when the tomb opens, as soon it will, to receive the worn-out husk I call myself, the now viewless doors of the universe, which is but the palace of God, will swing wide ajar to receive me, a liberated immortal Soul!

...I leave to him the organization of my Soul, and every arrangement for the life after death.  I know he loves me."

The gift of a soul is really the only thing that matters.  How easy it is to get caught up in everything else this life offers.  God forgive me for forgetting the gift of my soul.