ically right
in insisting that our true home, our _patria_, is 'not here.' Nor is it
in any place: it is with God,'whose centre is everywhere and His
circumference nowhere.' There remaineth a rest for the people of God,
when their warfare on earth is accomplished.

A Christian must feel that the absence of any clear revelation about a
_future_ state is an indication that we are not meant to make it a
principal subject of our thoughts. On the other hand, the more we think
about the eternal values the happier we shall be. As Spinoza says, 'Love
directed towards the eternal and infinite fills the mind with pure joy,
and is free from all sadness. Wherefore it is greatly to be desired, and
sought after with our whole might.' But he also says, and I think
wisely, that there are few subjects on which the 'free' man will ponder
less often, than on death. The end of life is as right and natural as
its beginning; we must not rebel against the common lot, either for
ourselves or for our friends. We are to live in the present though not
for the present. The two lines of Goethe which Lewis Nettleship was so
fond of quoting convey a valuable lesson:

'Nur we du bist, sei alles, immer kindlich:
So bist du alles, bist unueberwindlich.'

'Death does not count,' as Nettleship used to say; and he met his own
fate on the Alps with a cheerfulness which showed that he believed it.
The craving for mere survival, no matter under what conditions, is
natural to some persons, and those who have it not must not claim any
superiority over those who shudder at the idea of resigning this
'pleasing, anxious being.' Some brave and loyal men, like Samuel
Johnson, have feared death all their lives long; while others, even when
fortune smiles upon them, 'have a desire to depart and to be with
Christ, which is far better.' But the longing for survival, and the
anxious search for evidence which may satisfy it, have undoubtedly the
effect of binding us to earth and earthly conditions; they come between
us and faith in true immortality. They cannot restore to us what death
takes away. They cannot lay the spectre which made Claudio a craven.

'Ay, but to die and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless wi