Christian virtues-those qualities in men for the cultivation of which we respect them, and on which human society rests-do arise out of a belief in a future life. They become reasonable only where the man believes in a life hereafter; nor is there a doubt that if anywhere in a society or nation this belief should die out and become extinct, that society or nation would perish, as an organized body; because its members would rapidly become self-seeking, would scorn self-denial, would refuse submission to the general good. "Every man for himself" would logically become the supreme rule; and it would require the superior force of a dictator or military tyrant to maintain even the commonest arts of civilization in such a society. So true is this, that wherever in any country the thought of and belief in a future life has died out among even a considerable part of the population, there, in the same measure, you see men turn to selfish enjoyments, to brutal or merely animal lives; they avoid duty and self-sacrifice, and seek satisfaction in a scramble for wealth, fashion, ambition, or ease.

You may object that there are men who, rejecting God and denying a future life for themselves or mankind, are still conspicuously laborious for the good of their fellows-benevolent, unselfish, and obedient to a high sense of duty. This is very true;

and so, to recur to my former illustration of the conduct of college students, if they knew that on their graduation they were to be killed, not all would turn to low or degrading pleasures, though it is probable that the greater part would do so. But each would pursue that which most gratified his own mind; and while some would study and read, this would be because to these few the acquisition of knowledge seemed, on the whole, pleasanter than gluttony, drunkenness, or some other form of vicious indulgence.

Nor are you to forget that the long fixed code of morals of Christendom retains inevitably a powerful influence over even those who nowadays deny the Christian doctrine, and especially on those who, rejecting this theory of life, are yet impelled to seek another. Thoughtful sceptics or deniers are the most certain to strive after the highest ideal of living which they can conceive, and to be subjected in their thoughts and aspirations in this life most completely by all that is noble and humane in the Christian code. The mass of mankind are thus affected also, but to a much more limited degree, as we plainly perceive on every hand; and you need only to read the history of the Roman decadence to see what becomes of a nation in which the belief in God and a future life has perished. In that sad and terrible

story you can see how futile is the effort of society to get on without God; how selfishness takes the place of duty where men cease to believe in a future life; how all the barriers of restraint are broken down, and society presently becomes corrupted, depraved, vicious, and at last falls into helpless anarchy.

The belief in God and a future life appears thus to be in harmony with the best interests, and even necessary to the orderly existence of human society. And this is because it operates as a restraint upon the selfish ambitions of the strong, as the protection of the weak, and the consoler of the unfortunate; and because it opens up a life beyond the grave, as the solace and satisfaction of those who find here their efforts thwarted and their hopes failures.

V.

THE NECESSITY OF A LIVING FAITH.

IF I insist, even to repetition, upon the importance of Faith, this is because I should like you to grasp solidly this fact, that it is the greatest calamity which can befall a human being to live his life without a firm and permeating belief in God and the future life. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die," is necessarily, though no doubt often unconsciously, the creed of one who has ceased to believe in a future and spiritual life for himself; or, worse yet, of one who, as so many in our days, holds this faith vaguely and formally, as a thing which need have no effect upon his actions, or on his character which is the result of his actions; as a faith which comes to him only as a spectre of terror in his lonely moments, or when he is ill, or in danger or great discomfort.

It is written, "The devils believe also-and tremble;" and the man to whom the faith we are considering takes on this shape to whom the future after death is a matter of no concern except as it

leaves him a prey to nameless terrors this man necessarily plays with life as a gambler, sadly or savagely as his temper may lead him, but without hope of any good which he might attain by the proper training of his spirit, outside the narrow and uncertain span of his few earthly days. The stronger willed such a man is, and the better trained his intellect, the more apt he is to resent his circumstances, his companionships, his disabilities and limitations.

It is because the faith of Christendom has been so greatly shaken in modern days, because great masses of men have ceased to believe, in any real sense, in God and the future life, that we see such numbers devoted to the mere pursuit of comfort, wealth, and ambition-to the scramble after the lower pleasures and enjoyments, and the gratification of those desires and passions which pertain to the body, and therefore to this life alone, and undue absorption in which leads to a merely animal existence, and kills the spirit. We see more and more all over the Christian world that as this faith in God and expectation of a future life are weakened or decrease, so discontent, envy of the worldly great and successful, a craving for physical comforts and enjoyments, and a blind worship of success increase; and thus we find a numerous multitude among the