Year: 1876

wisdom, although in & manner quite in
comprehensive 10 us. We do not know
the tfde meaning Of anything we see
around us, or in any Of the ordinary con-
ditiCns of life To our appTehensions,
death Is the krsEtest evil, and yet IT Is
by no means certain that it is an evil at
all. The general TESTIMONY Of physicians
is that the vast majority of people meet
1t with a fOrtitude which they never an
ticipated they could summon up. To
the bereayed survivors, death Is indeed
an evil, an evil hard to be borne. But
at such times the departed should also
be remembers What have they lost ?
They are gone, and we must quickly
follow. For either grief or JOY, for
either pleasure or pain, our day IS short.
Is it the survivor or the departed who
would be pitied most if we could see and
know all? DR.. johnson feared death
excessively all his life-the thought of
it rendered him wretched beyond de-
scriptiOn for over fifty years, and yet
when it came he bore it cheeTfnlly, and
as one who stood over him bears witness,
g all his fears and anxieties seemed to be
absorbed" Almost everyone who has
recovered from dangerous illness will
attest that the fear of death bad no in
fuence over his mind, unless, indeed, as
associated with the thought of the great
beyond. And what Is to come then
must remain a matter of belief, not OF
knowledge. No audible voice can reach
US out of the solemn darkness which lies
before us. The teaching of christianity
can alone illumine it. 1t Is the domain
of faith, and it is wiser on every ground
to hold to the faith taught by the chris
tian church, than TO plunge into the
bottomIess sea of skePticism toward
which the philosophers are ceaselessly
endeavoring to push us.


For what, after all, does their knowl-
edge tell us? Whence we came, or
whittier we go, are problems upon which
the bOasted discoveries of science have
thrown no light, and never can throw
any. What we know and see is that
man Is gifted with powers which seem to
be capable of indefinite expansion, and
that these powers are suddenly arrested,
often lust as they are becoming most
valuable The few years which are
mans portion here on earth vanish like
a dream in the night. Before he can
say, " | have life" it Is gone; in the for
chile imagery of scripture, he Is like the
grass" In the morning 1t tiourlsheth
and groweth up; in the evening it Is cut
down and withereth." SO brief Is human
existence. Something within us says
that this Is not all :; that beyond the
grave the mysterious thread of life viii
be carried on. Scripture declares that
this is net a delusiOn, and reason con
firms it, for however difficult 1t may be
to conceive of future world, it Is still
more difficult to believe that man came
from nothing and goes forward to ami
hilation. To devote great powers and
much learning to the destruction OF the
christian belief, fraught as it Is with in
exprcssible consolation to the myrIads, Is
a work which the men engaged init must
at times find 1t hard to reconcile with
conscience; or if the existence of con-
science be denied, as thing not to be
proven" then to the common desire
not to inhict unnecessary pain and sui
fering upon our fellow men. Yet 1t Is
between these two forms of belief that
our children will have to choose, even as
we have to do. 1t is useless to hide the
question from thcm-they must be
brought face to face with it sooner or
later. The more thoroughly they are
made acquainted with what science has
done and attempted, the less will they
be liable to fall into the abyss Ofatheism,
the less will they be disposed to set up
human reason III the place of God, and
worship it. We are, indeed, told by Mr..
Matthew Arnold and his school that
christianity is doomed; but past eX-
perienCe teaches us that human pTedlc-
tions about the fall of christianity are
not worthy of implicit credence. OF
nations and empires it has itself foretOld
many things which have come to pass.
Some of its prophecies have yet to be
fulfilled and among them is that which
declares that though heaven and earth
shall pass away, the word which has
c2me from their creator shall not fail.