looked forth upon a world all their own-Moriah, on which the father of the faithful bound his only son for sacrificeHor, on which Aaron took off his robes and died-Nebo, from which Moses surveyed the promised land and then breathed his last-Carmel, where Elijah confronted and confounded the false worshippers of his age-and the heights. about Capernaum, consecrated by the feet of the Son of God; these, and others mentioned in the Holy Book, modern travellers tell us, stand occupying their old positions and wearing their old features.

But, durable as the mountains are, the text tells us of something more durable. What is that? What is that? The good man's existence, God's kindness, and the union of both.

I. THE GOOD MAN'S EXISTENCE IS MORE DURABLE THAN "THE MOUNTAINS." This is here implied. The people here addressed are supposed to live after the mountains have departed. On what do I base my conviction that man will outlive the "everlasting mountains," or, in other words, that there is a future state? I confess that many of the arguments which Theology has employed in proof of man's immortality carry but little, if any, force to me.

It is said, for instance, that the soul is immortal because it is immaterial. As I know nothing of the essence of matter or of mind, the word immaterial has no meaning to me, and therefore I cannot logically predicate anything concerning it. It is also said that the soul is immortal, because it has instinctive desires for a future life. Were I to grant that universal man instinctively craves for an after life, yearns for an existence beyond the grave, I see not how that longing can of itself be any proof of such a life; for are not men constantly yearning after things, such as wealth, power, happiness, which they never possess? Hence, man's craving after things is no guarantee that he will possess them. It is also said by some, that man is immortal because of the wonderful things he has accomplished. His achievements in rearing magnificent cities, sculpturing

forms true to life, discovering the laws that govern the universe, writing books to move the ages, and subordinating the forces of Nature to his service, are brought forward in proof of his immortality. It is said, "Could less than souls immortal thus have done?" But if this proves the immortality of man, may it not also prove the immortality of other creatures-prove, for example, the immortality of the coral insect that built up the lovely islands of the sea?

• The fact that this life affords neither sufficient time nor opportunity for the soul to develop itself has also been used as an argument. That souls have capabilities which find no full development here, is a fact of which, I should suppose, all dying men are conscious. What the French political martyr felt under the terrible knife of the Revolution-when he put his hand to his forehead, feeling his soul flooded with ideas and aspirations, and exclaimed, "There is, nevertheless, something here!"-is felt perhaps by the majority of men in leaving this world; they feel then there is something within them undeveloped, unrealized, unworked. But this unwrought power bears no conviction to me of a future life, since I find everywhere in the flowers of the field, in the trees of the forest, and in the beasts of the field, death coming in stages. of immature development. The conclusions of the sages of ancient times are also sometimes used as an arguIt is true that some of the wise men of antiquity did reason themselves into something like a belief in a future state. "In what way shall we bury you?" said Crito to Socrates, immediately before his death. "As you please," was the reply. "I cannot, my friends, persuade Crito that I am the Socrates that is now conversing and ordering everything that has been said; but he thinks I am that man whom he will shortly see a corpse, and asks how you should bury me. But what I have all along been talking so much about-that when I shall have drunk the poison, I shall no longer stay with you, but I shall, forsooth, go away to certain felicities of the blest-this I seem to myself to have been saying in vain, whilst com

ment.

forting at the same time you and myself." But although the illustrious sage thus spoke, it is not a conviction, it is only a passing impression; for we find his doubt in his words to the judges who are about condemning him: "Know that death is certainly not an evil; for of two things it is one or the other, either annihilation, a sleep without a dream, when it is a good-for which of our days has ever been worth a night of complete repose, a deep sleep? Or it is a better state than our actual state, and by so much the more, then, a good." The idea of Socrates did not amount to much more than the poetic dream of old Homer, who imagined Ulysses to have descended into the world of souls, and there met and conversed with his mother and Achilles. Anyhow were it a faith, unless his beliefs were infallible they are no proof.

If my convictions of a future life are not founded on such arguments as these, on what then? I answer, on the revelation of God's will as contained in the Scripture, especially in the Gospel of his Blessed Son. The continuation of any creature's existence must depend upon the Creator. If He has willed that the strongest creature, constitutionally, shall live only a day, his strength will avail him nothing, he will not live an instant longer; or if He has purposed that the most fragile creature in existence shall live for ever, his existence, however frail, will never have a termination. To know, therefore, how long any creature is to live, I must know the will of God in relation to the point. That will is revealed to me in the teachings of Christ and his Apostles. Here life and immortality are fully brought to light. "This is the will of him that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life." Eternal life, meaning a life without sin, without misery, and without end, is an expression used no less than forty times in the New Testament. The Gospel draws the material curtain that conceals from us the world beyond the grave, and actually shows us men thinking, acting, suffering, exulting, in the eternal world. To the question, "If a man die, shall he live

again?" it says, "Yes," with a precision and an emphasis that admit of no debate.

The fact, thus so well attested, that a man is more durable than "the mountains" gives consistency to our life. Were there no existence beyond this, this life would be a crushing enigma. We should be harassed and confounded with questions for which we could find no solution-questions which preclude all faith in the wisdom, the love, and the justice of the Creator. To me, indeed, all religion seems to stand or fall with the question of a future life. Religion is love to God. Yet how can I love Him who endowed me with capacities which He denied me an opportunity to work out, capabilities which He crushed in the bud? How could I love Him who implanted within me restless cravings for a future that is not? How could I love Him who here requites not human conduct, allows the wicked so generally to revel in worldly prosperity, and the good so frequently to be the victims of oppression and want? No: if there is no future life I cannot love Him; for He has dealt too hardly with me in the nature He has given. I would rather not to have been than to be; or sooner have been the cattle that gambol on the hills, or the birds that warble in the groves, than to be what I am-burning with hopes which will be quenched in midnight-aching, for ever aching, after that which is a miserable illusion.

This fact of a future state gives grandeur to life. If we have no life beyond this, how contemptibly mean we are! At the base of the grand old hills, in the presence of the mighty ocean, or under the awful stars, what seem we if there be no future life? Wretched ephemera unworthy of notice! But as we are to live for ever, we rise in a majesty that throws the grandest of Nature's forms into insignificance. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed," but we shall be.

We infer from the text

IL THAT GOD'S KINDNESS IS MORE DURABLE THAN THE “MOUNTAINS.” “My kindness shall not depart from thee."

God's kindness is more durable even than man. Though man will never have an end, he had a beginning. God's kindness never had a beginning, and will never have an end. Kindness is the very essence of the Eternal, the root of all existence, the primal font of all blessedness in all worlds.

First: His "kindness" will continue notwithstanding the sins of humanity. The very fact that men, as transgressors of the divine law, are permitted to live in such a world as this demonstrates its mercy. When men transgress the laws of their country their liberty is destroyed; they are often bound in chains, incarcerated in dungeons, and in some cases have their lives taken from them. But here are we confessedly habitual transgressors of the divine law, enjoying the blessings of nature and the favours of Providence. Why is this? His "kindness" does not "depart" from us. "To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him." The sins of six thousand years have not caused Him to withdraw his "kindness" from the world. It gleams as brightly in the heavens, breathes as vitally in the air, rolls as affluently in the seasons, flows as fully in the current of universal life as it did from the beginning. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Men often sin away the kindness of their fellow. men, quench their love, and excite their indignation, but they cannot sin away the "kindness of God." They may, they do, use it to their injury, as they burn themselves in fire, destroy themselves in water, and poison themselves by food. Still it is kindness, though out of it they make their hell.

Secondly: His "kindness" continues notwithstanding the sufferings of humanity. In fact, his kindness is expressed in human suffering. If we saw things as they really are, we should discover that there is as much kindness in the afflictions and trials of men as in their comfort and prosperity. Does not the loving father often show more love to his child in correcting him for his offences than in gratifying his