The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 666

— PRAYER

626 heart

is

thing of

We

weak and its

suffering, the life of prayer generally loses

we can not exist The former be-

are men, and not spirits; and, unlike angels,

God

without the body.

created us body and soul.

Hence an utterance

longs to our being essentially and forever.

our

some-

freshness and power.

life like

of

prayer must necessarily be dependent upon soul and

body, and that in

much

we

stronger sense than

usually suppose.

However, the fact must be emphasized that prayer's dependence upon the body is not absolute. Otherwise there could be no prayer among the angels, nor in the Holy Spirit. Our prayer depends upon the consciousness J

when

are men, consisting of

that

is

lost,

body and

And, since we

prayer ceases.

human

soul, the

in the ordinary sense, related also to the body.

consciousness

But that

is,

this de-

pendence is not absolute is evident from the fact that the Eternal Being, whose divine consciousness is but dimly reflected in that of man, has no body. " God is Spirit." And the same is true of the world of spirits, who, altho incorporeal, yet possess a consciousness; and of the three Persons of the Trinity, especially of the Holy Spirit. Hence the question arises whether man separated by death from the body loses consciousness.

To

this

we

Our human consciousness, as we possess existence, in

Q.

is,

the

form

is lost in

reply in the affirmative. in

it

our present earthly

death, to be restored to us in the resurrection,

stronger, purer,

and

holier.

St.

Paul says: "We,"

— that

human consciousness, — "now know in part, but then we," — same human consciousness, " shall know face to face, even as

our

we

are known." But from this it does not follow that in the intermediate state the soul must be denied all self-consciousness. The Scripture teaches the very contrary. Of course, for this knowledge we depend upon the Scripture alone. The dead can not tell us anything No one but God, who ordained the conof their state after death. ditions of life in the intermediate state, can reveal to us what those And He has revealed to us that immediately after conditions are. death the redeemed are with Jesus. St. Paul says " I have a deAnd, since a friend's pressire to depart and to be with Christ." :

ence does not afford us pleasure except

we

are conscious of

follows that the souls of the saints, in the intermediate possess

now

some

sort of consciousness different

possess, but sufficient to realize

state,

it, it

must

from that which we

and enjoy the presence of

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