Morning journal and courier., 1885-06-22

ling force can compare. The constant recognition of the fact that one supreme ob feet can alone stand the test of ecrutinizing judgment, and this constant reference to it as the touchstone of our life gives confidence and inward self-reiance. The unhinching application of this law to every act and feel ing gives self-control and self-satisfaction, while the exercise of every gift which we pos sess, whether of wealth, or learning. or sta tion, for the wellbelng of man awakens the highest satisfaction and blesses the conscience with the peace of God.
 The remark is so often quoted as to become commonplaee.-After all the most one can get out of life is usefulness. If this is true it takes life at once out of all low and selfish relations. It makes discipline of charac- ter it's nob1est aim and end. It tells that what we are, not what we can gain or get of fame, or money, or learning, gives its su- preme value to our living. So soon as life is alone valued for its discipline of character, then the most of it's problems are solved, it's dark passages glow with light, it's seem- ing inequalities are all adjusted, it's heart breaking disappeintments are explained. Ev- cry complication of evil which otherwise were a tangled maze becomes g scene of order and beauty. So soon as another life comes into view, then the much vexed question whether life is worth living is answered, and the motive to live this life well because it fits us for another comes home to us as solution of our doubts and call to give all diligence to exemplify our faith in every opportunity of act or sui fering All our difficulties about gratuitous- ness of pardon and the confidence of faith vanish as soon as we see that trusting and loving gratitude to Christ is in it's very na- ture living impulse to every variety of hu- man affection and act. If we ask why is life so checkered and so strange, why so ln- complete with some and so finished with otherr, why so stormy with some and so fT11 nth W and 30 dark and despairing to another, we can only say, and when we say we can say enough in effect, that life does not end with the bodily and earthly, but intro duces us to other scenes. It is consequently a most natural transition by which the apos- tie passes from the present to the future life, and tells us, connecting fidelity and energy in the one with complete fitness and more hearty welcome in the other, "f ye do these things ye shall never stumble neith CT in this life nor in the future, D ''for there shall be supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ"
 We have already anticipated our conclud ing thought-the relations of our ideal life to the future. Our reasonings and hopes have brought us to the threshold so easily and naturally as not to know that we have crossed it all. This is what the Christian life involues, a natural and easy entrance in
 
 revelation of glorious scenes, and the ready response of the soul richly prepared for all by the discipline of life. This is the crown and continuation of the ideal life, that in it's plans and purposes, its aspirations and hopes, it's standard of character and it's loftiest moods it should be in harmony with the life which 1t will take up when it shall drop the body and wake to the realiZations of the bet ter life. What this waking shall involve we cannot anticipate. It is we'll that we should not Otherwise our bodily life would be no discipline to our fidelity but in place of this would become @ constant temptation to dis content and romantic self-indulgence. It is eminently true and the more we think and question and seek to discover we are the more convinced that we know not what we shall be. We cannot know and ought not to desire to know physically or psychologist ally considered about the nature and condi- tions of that life. We have data for sci entifc theorizing to work upon or for the imagination to infiate into brilliant phantasm. But we know that we shall be like him whom we now live for, for we shall see him as he is. It is but sober truth to believe that the man who has trusted his Master in loving allegi- ance under all the disabilities of humanity thall respond with fervent and completed conservation to the distinct manifestation of Christ to his astonished vision. It is equal ly rational to believe that to those who have anticipated the atmosphere of that life by
 
 the frst-that it's welcome gates shall open wide for them with generous welcome. It is rational to believe that this is possible; nay, more, it is rational to believe that it will be a fact. To be assured of this hope has been the triumph of Christian philosophy To anticipate such life in heaven to be transfgured by it into new life on earth has been the triumph of Christian feeling and action. The more vividly men have made real to their faith the pitying and guiding love of Christ and made joyous to their experience the power of his resurrection, the more confident have they been of the reality of this future blessedness. What wonderful story has been the story of the progressive strength with which the faith has taken hold of the creeds and philosophy of Christendom. How has it wrought itself into it's literature. How How tender and spiritual it has made the heart of childhood. How pathetic has it made the experience of parents at the thought of the infant that was early lost, and the son or daughter who have been cut down in the flush and promise of youth. How serene and self-possessed has it made old age as it turns it's last look of blessing on the earth and it's first look forward into the opening heavens. How slowly has ration al theory of the certainty and the nature of the future life gained upon the Christian church and yet how strong it has become
 
 which commends it to the honest heart What contrast in every particular be- tween heathendom and Christendom in it's conceptions of the future life and the mo tives which each derives from it's theory.
 But the strangest of all the facts of our modern life is, that men of science and cul- ture are so ready to fling away their immor- tality at the first challenge of its proof, and to dispense with its inspiration and its com fort at the mere suggestions of 8 materialism which is far enough from be- ing demonstrated, and an agnosticism whose dogmatism has the air of anything rather than of modest doubt In other words, Tow strange that 50 many should deliberately sacrifice the hopes and impulses of @ Christian immortality and trample into scorn both the doctrines and the proof and most of all the living power and we'll sup ported story of Him who abolished death and brought immortality to light. No phenome- non is more strange than the easy acceptance of negative suggestions concerning "a matter in regard to which certainty is most called for. The old Stoics could hardly think it comported with the dignity of their panthe- istic divinity to save from extinction any others than the aristoeracy of the universe. But they had never hea1d of the gospel story of the pitying and redeeming God, nor imagined it's divine pathos nor witnessed it's uplifting power. It is not strange that they should not have conceived such theory as the Christian immortality brought to light by the ascending love ol God. Nor, per haps, that when it was first proclaimed as a verified fact they should have hesitated to receive it, or even have smiled at it's splen- did promises. But that our new Stoics should so readily part with it's inspirations at the suggestions of unhedged and improved hy- potheses betokens greater heartlessness of feeling than it does profoundness of in sight. It savors more of quiekness of wit than it does of sobriety of judgment. It would seem as though it were the name rath- CT than the reality of science that had be- wildered or bewitched them to throw over board the compass by which man could steer because of difficulties in the theory of mag netism rather than accept with thankfulness it's guidance. What is more wondrous still, the Christian hopes and impulses which they reject are no longer ridiculed and scorned as they were by the ancient Stoics. They are honored and blessed as an inspiration by the new prophets of unbelief even while they are belied and rejected as truths. The sad lady, who after giving to the English-speaking world a series of wondrous tales drawn from the Christian aspirations of her earlier years, has left behind her the more pathetic story of her own later life, when bereft of this faith and hope, is herself a striking example of what the Christian faith in immortality is worth while it is retained and of how much is forfeited when it is weakened or lost. rasb and de1ibarafe oJ1ioi5ao &l,a4 ,,,,14;