Will the same identical materials composing the mortal body be reorganized in the resurrection body? There will be a sufficient quantity of those materials brought forth to form a perfect tabernacle for the spirit. But it is not to be expected that every particle, which at any time has formed a component part of the mortal body, will be raised and enter into the immortal one. Many persons by severe sickness, lose from fifty to a hundred

the dust will be effected by the word | great variety. In every species of anand power of God. The Spirit of imals and plants, there are many reGod which dwells in the elements, semblances in the general outlines, will, by His command, bring them to- and many specific differences characgether, depositing every particle in its terizing the individuals of each species. proper position, so as to form a per- So in the resurrection: there will be fect tabernacle! The deformities ex-several classes of resurrection bodies; isting in the mortal body, will not ap- some celestial, some terrestrial, some pear in our resurrection bodies; but telestial, and some sons of perdition. all who are counted worthy to receive Each of these classes will differ from a celestial body, will appear in the the others by prominent and marked image and likeness of the glorified distinctions; yet in each, considered body of Jesus; and his body is in the by itself, there will be found many reexpress image and likeness of his semblances as well as distinctions. Father's person. Paul, in speaking of There will be some physical peculithe resurrection says, that Jesus "shall arity by which each individual in every change our vile body, that it may be class can be identified. fashioned like unto his glorious body." (Philippians 3: 21.) Notwithstanding we shall be fashioned like his body, yet there will be a variety of features and size by which one will be distinguished from another, the same as in this life. The likeness will be in the general outlines-in the perfection of the organization-in the beautiful adjustment of the several parts in the perfect symmetry of the whole —and in the purity, immortality, and glory with which it is filled and sur-pounds of flesh in the course of a few rounded. In all these respects there will be a perfect likeness. But when sizes are compared, there will be a great variety from the tabernacles of infants up through every grade to those of gigantic magnitude. Although there will be an endless variety of features, yet all will appear equally glorious and beautiful; the beauty being the result of the perfection and glory of the spirit inhabiting the tabernacle. There will undoubtedly be distiuguishing characteristics relating to the age attained previous to the dissolution. This distinction will probably be manifested, in some small degree, in the countenance and in the color of the hair, and in the difference of size between the child and the man of gray hairs. In all the works of God, we behold a resemblance among classes; but a variety among individuals belong-tem, and many pounds of new bone ing to each class. All the planets of our system resemble each other more or less in form; but in magnitude and in many other respects, there is a

months; and after recovering, they not unfrequently, in the course of one or two years, regain as much flesh as they lost. And in the course of a long life, they may, by successive intervals of health and sickness, gain and lose from ten to fifteen hundred pounds of flesh. Now it would be altogether absurd to suppose that these ten or fifteen hundred pounds of flesh are all to be reorganized in the resurrection body. The same reasoning will apply to the bones as well as the flesh, for small pieces of bones may be extracted from the system, and by the deposition of new matter, new bones, or rather parts of bones, will be formed; and in the course of a long life, there could be many pounds of bone extracted by small pieces at successive intervals from the human sys

formed to supply the place of the old. Also, children shed their teeth, and others grow in their stead. Now we cannot suppose that in the resurrec

has been successively deposited and thrown off, and in the resurrection not over one-tenth part of these materials would be needed to construct the immortal body. Therefore, whether we admit the idea of a constant and gradual change, or sudden changes, produced by successive intervals of sickness and health, we are led to the same conclusion, that only a part of the old materials of the mortal body will enter into the composition of the immortal one.

tion, the old and new teeth, and the | tem, would have had, during his life, old and new bones will all be raised about one ton of flesh and bones that and enter into the composition of the immortal body. Many persons cut off over one-tenth of an inch of their beard every week, which, in the course of a year, will amount to over five inches, and in the course of sixty years, will amount to over twenty-five feet. And those who are in the habit of paring off the ends of the finger and toe nails, will find that in the course of sixty or eighty years, they have actually cut off from each finger and toe, from six to eight feet of nail. If, therefore, all the old materials of the human system are to arise, we shall be favored with a beard and hair from twenty-five to thirty feet long; with finger and toe nails, six or eight feet long; with two sets of teeth, and with ten or fifteen hundred pounds of flesh and bones. Such a supposition would be ridiculous. We are, therefore, compelled to believe that in the resurrection, each immortal body only takes that quantity of the old materials as is amply sufficient to form a beautiful and perfect tabernacle for the spirit.

Some persons have denied the possibility of the resurrection, on the ground that among cannibals, where they are in the constant habit of devouring human flesh, one human body is, in a great measure, formed out of the component parts of many others. And because the same particles have, at successive periods, existed in scores of individuals, forming parts of each successive tabernacle, they argue that each individual has equal claim upon the same identical particles. And as the same particles in the resurrection can only be organized in one body at It is believed by many scientific the same time, they reason that all men that our bodies are constantly the others who have equal claims to and gradually changing through the the same, would be lacking of the whole of our lives, and that in the necessary materials, and consequently period of from seven to ten years, could not rise. If, in this argument, the whole body undergoes an entire the premises are granted, the concluchange; the old particles having been sions would be correct. But the thrown off, and new ones having suc- premises are false for all flesh was ceeded in their stead, and that the originally formed from earthly and reason why many old scars remain vegetable matter; and though canniduring a long life is, because the new bals and carniverous animals grow and particles in the gradual interchange, increase, both in size and weight, take the position of the old, necessa- on flesh; yet that very flesh, when rily perpetuating the shape of the scar traced back through successive aniyears after the old particles have fled. mals which have been devoured, will It is pretended that this doctrine is es- be found to have originated in herbiftablished by many indubitable eviden-erous animals whose flesh is wholly ces that cannot be shaken. If we composed of earthly and vegetable should admit this idea to be correct, it would still further prove that in the resurrection all the materials of the mortal body do not come forth; for an old man whose weight has been some two hundred pounds the most of his days, and having passed through ten entire changes of the materials of his sys

substances. Now the amount of vegetable substances, converted into flesh, is not only equal to, but far greater than the amount of animal substances, converted into the flesh of other animals. This is evident from the constant change to which the bodies of all animals are subject, ow

ing to the removal of old particles, that as the whole animal kingdom, if and the deposition of new, as mani- raised to immortality, being composed fested by a decrease or increase of of vegetable matter, would require a flesh, depending on the scarcity or vast amount of the vegetable materials abundance of food. When we take to reconstruct their immortal bodies; into consideration the whole animal and that, therefore, if the whole vegekingdom, nothing is more certain table kingdom was likewise to receive than that the flesh, formed by de-a resurrection, it would require that vouring other flesh, can never exceed portion of its materials which conin weight the flesh formed from vege-stitutes animal flesh. But this would tables and earthly matter: indeed it be unnecessary for the same change, would be an absolute impossibility for which is said to be constantly taking the former ever to exceed the latter. place in the animal body, is also af And when we take into consideration firmed to be a characteristic in the the calls of the appetite, and that vegetable economy. It is said that every animal, in the course of a very every blade of grass-every herb and few years, requires many times its own plant, and every tree, is constantly weight in food, it demonstrates be- throwing off or parting with its old yond all controversy that the amount particles, and that new matter is every of flesh, formed from herbs and veg- moment being secreted to supply the etables, must far exceed, by many place of the old. It is said that a tree, times its own weight, that formed as well as a man, undergoes an entire by devouring flesh; for were it not change of materials every few years. so, the former would in a very few If this be the case, the whole vegetamonths be wholly devoured by the ble kingdom, including those of every latter, and the earth would speedily age, might be reorganized out of old be depopulated of men and animals. vegetable particles, without interferIf, then, the amount of flesh, form- ing, in the least, with that portion of ed directly from vegetable substances, vegetable matter which enters into the exceed, by an immense quantity, all animal economy; and, also, without other kinds of flesh, it demonstrates being under the necessity of borrowthe fact, that in the resurrection the ing materials from foreign sources, whole herbiferous and carniverous that never were before vegetable contribes of the land and water, includ- stituents. ing fish, fowls, animals, and men, could be raised up from the dust with immortal bodies, constructed of the same identical particles, or rather a sufficient quantity of them, that once existed in the form of mortal flesh; and still there would be an immense quantity to spare, being surplus flesh, arising from the constant mutations or changes to which all mortal flesh is subject.

We will venture to remark still further, that should it be maintained that even every vegetable of our globe should be reconstructed and made new, there would be an abundance of materials that have once existed in those vegetables to form them all anew without making use of any for eign matter that has not been thus organized. This may, at first view, appear impossible; it may be supposed

Without coinciding with the views of the scientific world in regard to the constant and gradual change, operating upon all organic substances, by which they are said to contain, in the course of a long period, several times the quantity of matter that they inherit at any one time, we can still account for the resurrection and reconstruction of all organic bodies, both of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, by sup. posing, that in the renewal of those bodies, it is not absolutely necessary that their whole systems should be composed of materials which have previously been thus organized. If there be enough of the old materials to form the germ or nucleus of the resurrection body, it will not matter, in our view of the subject, whether the balance of the materials are the old particles again collected, or foreign

that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another of beasts, another

matter, similar in kind, but not identical in substance. In the formation of a drop of water, it would make no difference, whether it were composed of the eight parts of oxygen and one of hydrogen that it was previously composed of, or whether the same proportions of these elements were derived from some foreign source where they never had existed in combination as water. Two drops of pure water-of fishes, and another of birds." (1 one formed in Asia and the other in Corinth. 15: 35-39.) When a kerAmerica, would be composed of the nel of wheat falls into the earth, it dies, same definite proportions of their ele- or rather a portion of its substance is mentary constituents-would have the disorganized; and the germ unites same properties and qualities in every itself with other materials, and forms respect; and one could be changed for a stalk which heads, and blossoms, the other without the least inconveni- and numerous other kernels of wheat ence, and would subserve exactly the begin to make their appearance which same purpose in all experiments, con- grow and ripen; and it is at length ditions, or circumstances to which it found that sixty or a hundred other might be subjected: and, therefore, the kernels of the same, shape, size, and original circumstances in which the quality, as the one sown, are produced. elements existed, would not have the Now these new kernels are not the least bearing upon their present com- same identical materials sown: neither binations and future purposes. If the is the one-hundredth part of the old particles of the body, themselves, were particles found combined in each of intelligent and accountable beings, they the new: they are each composed of then might, with some propriety, con- almost entire new substance that never tend that it was their right to be re- was before organized as wheat: The organized into an immortal tabernacle old particles were only necessary as a in connection with their old compan- foundation to give direction to the orions, and again be placed in conjunc-ganization, that the new might be tion with the same immortal spirit moulded after the old, bearing the that governed and controlled them in same appearance, and possessing the their mortal career. But if those par- same quality. Hence the farmer sowticles only exist as an organized taber- eth not that body that shall be, but nacle for the accommodation and hap-he soweth its likeness; and other bodies piness of the immortal spirit, and they of the same form spring forth. So themselves are not benefited, or re-likewise man sows not the body that main insensible to their condition, then it would make no difference, so far as they are concerned, whether they were reorganized in the bodies of men, or brutes, or remain unorganized; and it certainly would make no difference to the human spirit what particular particles its tabernacle was constructed of, providing the organization was perfect and consisted of the right kind of

matter.

Paul compares the resurrection to the growing up of grain after it is sown and dies. "But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool,

shall be, but he sows one containing the form, and magnitude, and, in some degree, the elements of the new.— Without the sowing of the old wheat, and its dissolution in the earth, the new could not be expected: so also, without our bodies are sown in corruption, there would be no foundation for incorruptible bodies. And as the new wheat is mostly composed of new particles never before organized as wheat; so, it is probable, that the new immortal body will contain much matter never before organized in human bodies.

"But God giveth it a body as it