happy in it, get everything for self out of it, and, as a matter of
hard necessity, at last die in it, and go from it--Whither? Ah! who
could tell _that?_--who ever thought of _that?_ To them it seemed that
death ended all that was reality, and began all that was visionary.
But whether early education is to blame, certain it is that many
people do come to this state. They seem stoneblind to the future. Not
one ray of light gets an entrance into their spirits from the great
and eternal world, on whose confines they every moment live. They
think, fear, hope, rejoice, plan, and purpose; but always about this
world,--never about the other! To rise in the morning; to be occupied
during the day; to buy and sell, and get gain; to talk on politics or
trade; to gossip about people, and all they speak or do; to marry or
give in marriage; to have this meeting or that parting; to give a
feast or partake of one; to fear sickness, and to keep it off; or to
be sick, and to try and get better:--all this sort of life, down to
its veriest trifles, they understand and sympathise with, and busy
themselves about. But what of God and Christ?--of eternal joy or
sorrow?--of how a man should live to God, please Him, enjoy Him, love
Him, and walk daily in fellowship with Him? What of such questions
as,--What shall become of us in eternity? What shall we do to be
saved? How shall we obtain life eternal? How shall we fulfil the end
of our being? All this--oh, strange mystery!--has no interest to them.
These thoughts, or any like these, never cross their mind, perhaps,
from morning till night, or from the first till the last day of the
year. They may, perhaps, have heard these words, read them in books,
or heard ministers speak them from the pulpit on Sunday, and they know
that the words have to do with what they call "religion," but never
think they have to do with what awfully concerns themselves! They are
words, but not about realities; or if they express realities, yet
realities which belong to some world of mist, and cloud, and darkness,