Then should come that dark time which they called the twilight of the
gods. Then the powers of evil would be let loose; the earth would go
to ruin in darkness and in flame. All living things would die. The
very gods would die, fighting to the last against the powers of evil,
till the sun should sink for ever, and the world be a heap of ashes.

And then--so strangely does God's gift of hope linger in the hearts
of men--they saw, beyond all that, a dim dream of a new heaven and a
new earth in which should dwell righteousness; and of a new sun, more
beautiful than ours; of a woman called "Life," hid safe while all the
world around her was destroyed, fed on the morning dew, preserved to
be the mother of a new and happier race of men. And so to them,
heathens as they were, God whispered that Christ should some day
bring life and immortality to light.

My friends, shall we sneer and laugh at all these dreams, as mere
follies of the heathen? If we do so, we shall not show the spirit of
God, or the mind of Christ. Nor shall we show our knowledge of the
Bible. In it, the spirit of God, who inspired the Bible, does not
laugh at these dreams. It rebukes them sternly whenever they are
immoral, and lead men to do bad and foul deeds, as Ezekiel rebuked
the Jewish women who wept for Thammuz, the dead summer. But that was
because those Jewish women should have known better. They should
have known--what the Old Testament tells us all through--what it was
especially meant to tell the men who lived while it was being
written, just because they had their fancies, and their fears about
summer and winter, and life and death. And what ought they to have
known? What does the Old Testament say? That life will conquer
death, because God, the Lord Jehovah, even Jesus Christ, is Lord of