1614 T. Wilson Comm. Epist. S. Paul to Romanes iv. 248 This hath also place euen in soule cases, for while some haue thought themselues no better then dead and lost men,..haue yet bin..restored to hope.

1644 R. Williams Blovdy Tenent 124 This power of the Magistrate to punish the Church of Christ, I meane in spirituall and Soule-cases.

1699 O. Heywood Autobiogr., Diaries, & Event Bks. (1885) IV. 195 Elizabeth Sonier came to discourse with me in soul-cases.

1746 J. Edwards Treat. Relig. Affections i. 80 They commonly are but poor judges, and dangerous counsellors in soul cases.

1859 D. Masson Life Milton I. 567 Such was his skill in ‘soul-cases’, that people under ‘soul-concern’ crowded the lobbies of his house to see and speak with him.

1683 O. Heywood Narr. Holy Life John Angier (new ed.) 54 None that knew him were afraid to open their Soul cases to him, finding him so tender..upon all occasions.

1796 Grose's Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue (ed. 3) (at cited word) Soul Case. The body. ‘He made a hole in his soul case’, he wounded him.

1869 H. B. Stowe Oldtown Folks xxiv. 292 The beautiful little hoax had nothing for it but her attractive soul-case.

1883 Brit. Q. Rev. Oct. 340 But at death the soul will pass from the body into some other form—animal, reptile, insect—and all these life-forms are but soul-cases.

1890 Freethinker 4 May 207/1 These subscribe their coins freely for the purchase of Catholic ‘souls’ of a juvenile order, and for the support of the ‘soul’ cases, or bodies, in orphanages.

1907 J. C. Harris in Uncle Remus's Mag. Aug. p. xlviii/2 He [sc. the scientist] has exhausted..all the means to be found in an extensive and costly laboratory; but the soul's nest, or, as we say in Georgia, the soul-case, is not to be discovered.

2001 P. Roberts in P. Alldridge & C. H. Brants Personal Autonomy ii. 63 Big Brother has the..power to strip away every last vestige of the soul-case.

1786 ‘A. Pasquin’ Royal Academicians 25 Silence, you brace of vagabonds! or by the virtues of my shelela I'll leather your soul-cases.

1835 A. B. Longstreet Georgia Scenes 109 When you come to the last half mile of each heat, run his heart, liver, lights, and soul-case out of him.

1837 Boston Med. & Surg. Jrnl. 16 62 The bully, prating so loudly,..and pledging himself to beat the soul-case out of you.

1896 J. C. Harris Sister Jane 277 The way that hoss flung around wi' you was enough to jolt your soul-case loose.

1898 P. L. Dunbar Folks from Dixie 117 I ain't a-gwine to waih my soul-case outa-tryin' to pinch along an' sta've to def at las'.

1901 F. J. Gillen Diary 15 Apr. (1968) 34 Flies were celebrating some festival all night and worried the very soul cases out of us.

1902 I. Broome Last Days Ruskin Co-op. Assoc. 93 The teachers have quit wearing their soul cases out and let them come and go unnoticed.

1945 G. Casey Downhill is Easier 146 He used t' belt the soulcase out o' her till I come along.

1976 M. Anthony Folk Tales & Fantasies 49 The musicians play out their soul-case and nobody ain't hugging them up.

1995 M. Collins Colour of Forgetting 38 [It was] thanks to the little piece of land, thanks to the fact that both of them working out their soul case on it, that they able to make things work.