From the nakedness and desolation of unclothed spirit, and the possibility which this notion held out of some close contact with a holy and just judge, the soul shrank back to the hope of the metempsychosis, and hoped rather to dwell in the body of a brute, than be utterly unclothed and mingle with spirits.

This is the delusion cherished by the people of India and many other lands to this day.

How unsatisfactory to the dying sinner this uncertainty.

"Tell me," said a wealthy Hindoo, who had given all his wealth to the Brahmins who surrounded his dying bed, that they might obtain pardon for his sins, "Tell me what will become of my soul when I die ?" "Your soul will go into the body of a holy cow." "And after that ?" "It will pass into the body of the divine peacock." "And after that ?" "It will pass into a flower." "Tell me, oh! tell me," cried the dying man, "where will it go last of all ?" Where will it go last of all?
Aye, that is the question Reason can not answer.
The rejectors of the Bible here are as uncertain on this all-important subject as the heathen of India.

They have every variety of oracles, and conjectures, and suppositions about the other world; but for their guesses they offer no proof.