Sarah Elizabeth Titcomb gives this clear title to her book, of 300 handsome pages, recently published by Cupples, Upham & Co. In many respects it is an interesting work, especially in its stories to illustrate the rational powers of birds and beasts, and its quotations to prove that the Bible nowhere teaches that man naturally possesses an immortal soul or spirit; for apparently she agrees with the Second Adventists, that, when a human being dies, he wholly perishes, soul as well as body, and that if there be immortality for man, it must be because God raises him from the dead and clothes him with a new body. She cites pertinent figures to show by how many different English words (scores of them) the Hebrew and Greek words for soul and spirit are translated in our common version of the Scriptures.
Her quotations from learned writers, of all complexions, are long and numerous. In fact, they make her book a mosaic. It would be pleasant to have more of Miss Titcomb herself, and less of Taylor, Bain, Priestley, Hudson, and a host of others. Often the authoress gives scarcely a connecting word of her own, and her chapters become so many bracelets of borrowed medallions.
In one feature the book is a disappointment. Her first paragraph is this:—
