self upon the general prosperity, and by going along with and not contrary to those natural laws which he understands. It is in this way that great and perma nent successes are made. Thus a young man planning a career for himself would, if he were far-sighted and wise enough to deserve success, take care in the beginning that his plans were not to violate natural laws, nor to be hurtful, but beneficial, to his fellowmen; and, having taken this precaution, he would go on, largely on faith, against great and frequent discouragements, often in poverty, friendless, misunderstood, perhaps in temporary defeat and disgrace; but he would follow in one fixed direction, and govern his life and his course by the lines he had laid out in the beginning.

To do otherwise, to set out without definite purpose, to change from one kind of effort to another at slight temptations of fortune, would be, as you easily see, to fritter away his life; to waste his strength without result. To be unstable, to "do everything by turns and nothing well," to live one's life without some fixed theory of action, to drift, even in the affairs of this brief life, is acknowledged by everybody to be unwise, unfit, and even deserving contempt. It is to be the sport of circumstances and to invite failure.

Now, what is thus plainly true in the affairs of

this life must be, as I would like you to see, true in a far greater and more important sense, if you are to look for another and more permanent existence after death. If this life in the body is not all, but if it is only the prelude to a far broader, more enduring, and higher existence for you, necessarily you ought to take that other and larger part of your life into account in all your plans and thoughts. To do otherwise would be to neglect the precautions which men take, as I have said, for objects of infinitely less importance. It would be as though one should engage an architect to build a cellar, but run up a costly house over it without regard to the skill or experience even of a builder or practical mechanic.

To consent to live without definite notions of its objects and tendencies, must needs make all human effort random and unsatisfactory, and human life an aimless or a selfish and merely animal existence. The man who does this can only drift. He is the creature of his impulses and of his fears, as are the animals. We have been left intellectually free to believe as seems to us most reasonable and conclusive on this great question. You may satisfy your minds, as some have done, that there is no God, and no future life for you; and when you come to this conviction or faith you will live accordingly. you may convince yourself that there is a God, and

Or

that your life-yourself-will continue after your body perishes; and as, in the other case, if this belief takes root in your mind, if it is a conviction, you will be impelled to plan your present life in accordance with it. But it is plainly your highest duty to yourself, it is the one thing necessary to your own real manhood or womanhood, and to your satisfactory living, that you shall come to some conclusion. You ought not to put it aside; for it is mainly the ability to consider this question which makes us higher than, and different from, the animals; and it is the conviction to which you come, the Faith which comes to you and becomes part of you, which alone can enable you to plan your life satisfactorily, and to live it with purpose and effectively.

That is to say, you cannot live, in any sense higher than the merest animal existence, without faith. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he;" and if he will not think at all of this problem of what life means, or if he is content to think vaguely and carelessly, necessarily he drifts, as a ship whose master lays no course for her; he tends to become no better, but rather worse, than the beasts which perish; he abandons that which, if there is a future life, is the only important or enduring part of him, and which, even in this life, is needed to make him a MAN, and not merely (as we see in so many instances) an abler

and more dangerous kind of animal. Nothing is so important to the direction of your lives and your efforts, to the maintenance of your self-possession and serenity of soul, as that you shall be possessed by a definite, firmly grasped belief as to the real objects of your life, and its duration and character.

To live without God in the world is sufficiently dreary; but the man who sincerely and soberly denies God and a future life, though I think him a very unenviable being, has yet a faith, and may, in my belief, be happier and more useful to his fellowmen than that great number who refuse to think at all of this subject, or even than those whose faith is perfunctory, vague, a source of confusion, irresolution, and terror, and not of the strength and consistency which come of a real belief.

II.

THE REASONABLENESS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH.

women.

I HAVE tried, in what goes before, to impress on your minds that a belief of some kind concerning the meaning and purpose of human life is necessary to raise us above the beasts, with whom, so far as regards our bodies, we have so much in common. Life without some such belief-life without Faith, in this sense-is unendurable to thoughtful men and You will notice that coincidently with the general and lamentable decadence of faith in the Christian theory of life, which marks our century, has come a new and vigorous discussion of the question, What is the true meaning of life? Some of the very men who most positively and earnestly reject the Christian faith are the most indefatigable in their efforts to establish some other theory of life. They cannot rest with mere negation; and you may see in the tone and drift of their discussions how intolerable to these thoughtful doubters is mere doubting; how necessary to their peace of mind is a settled belief of some kind. The men who in