m.
Few seeds germinate as compared with those that rot or are eaten, and
most of this world's denizens are little more than still-born as regards
the larger life, while none are immortal to the end of time. But the end
of time is not worth considering; not a few live as many centuries as
either they or we need think about, and surely the world, so far as we
can guess its object, was made rather to be enjoyed than to last. 'Come
and go' pervades all things of which we have knowledge, and if there was
any provision made, it seems to have been for a short life and a merry
one, with enough chance of extension beyond the grave to be worth trying
for, rather than for the perpetuity even of the best and noblest.

"Granted, again, that few live after death as long or as fully as they
had hoped to do, while many, when quick, can have had none but the
faintest idea of the immortality that awaited them; it is nevertheless
true that none are so still-born on death as not to enter into a life of
some sort, however short and humble. A short life or a long one can no
more be bargained for in the unseen world than in the seen; as, however,
care on the part of parents can do much for the longer life and greater
well-being of their offspring in this world, so the conduct of that
offspring in this world does much both to secure for itself longer tenure
of life in the next, and to determine whether that life shall be one of
reward or punishment.

"'Reward or punishment,' some reader will perhaps exclaim; 'what mockery,
when the essence of reward and punishment lies in their being felt by
those who have earned them.' I can do nothing with those who either cry
for the moon, or deny that it has two sides, on the ground that we can
see but one. Here comes in faith, of which the Sunchild said, that
though we can do little with it, we can do nothing without it. Faith
does not consist, as some have falsely urged, in believing things on
insufficient evidence; this is not faith, but faithlessness to all that
we should hold most faithfully. Faith consists in holding that the
instincts of the best men and women are in themselves an evidence which
may not be set aside lightly; and the best men and women have ever held
that death is better than dishonour, and desirable if honour is to be won
thereby.

"It follows, then, that though our conscious flesh and blood life is the
only one that we can fully apprehend, yet we do also indeed move, even