because we have attempted no elaborate and direct proof of the doctrine of man's immortality, but have merely addressed ourselves to the removal of certain popular objections. To ask your assent to this doctrine, on the ground of Scripture evidence, would be simply to change our base, and enter upon a more general subject; for no one who receives the New Testament as a revelation from God, can have any doubts in regard to his immortality. I have rested the general argument upon the simple ground that man is able to conceive of his own immortality, and, if this conception is a delusion, all faith in God becomes extinct. For, if any thing that pertains to our nature comes from Him, this instinct or intuition or consciousness must have been implanted in our souls by His hand. To believe that He has deceived us is the most horrible thought that can enter the mind of man. Then I do not know or care whether any thing is true, and I would prefer to believe that there is no God.

But, let it be observed that this general consciousness of immortality is never disturbed, until some subtle man begins to urge objections, and it is for this reason that I have confined myself to the consideration of those cavils, and tried to embody them all in one brief sketch, and dispose of them. If I have failed to do this satisfactorily, you must not

conclude that they can not be removed, but attribute the failure to my inability to cope with the subject. I am sure that I have not sought to evade the cavils of the unbeliever, or to meet them with ambiguous and uncertain replies. I have much more sympathy with those carnest but doubting souls, who are crying out of the darkness, and looking in vain for some gleam of light to illumine the pathway of the eternal future, but still looking with anxious hope, and trying to live as they think God would have them live, whether they are to die as the beast dieth or not, than I have with that great multitude who passively accept the fact that they are to live somewhere forever, and then go about their work and their play, as if nothing concerned them beyond the gains and the amusements of the day. Better to doubt honestly than to believe stupidly.

It is one thing to accept the fact of immortality as a part of one's creed, and another thing to receive it into the soul as a living power, so that we actually enter into our eternal life this side of the grave. "Heaven begun is the living proof that makes the heaven to come credible. Christ in you is the hope of glory. He alone can believe in immortality who feels the resurrection in him." The remedy for doubt is experience. When one can

say, with the apostle, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day," death is abolished, and life and immortality are brought to light. They are now seen, and not merely believed in. They have the power of a present fact, and so they regulate our thoughts and conduct, just as they are affected by the things which stand right before us, and address themselves to our senses. A holy life is the surest protection against doubt and unbelief.

EVOLUTION

AND A

PERSONAL CREATOR.

BY

JOHN COTTON SMITH, D.D.,

RECTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION, NEW-YORK.