"Last Things." They are all here now, here within the soul, just as
infinity and eternity are here now. It is not a matter of hither and
yonder, but of higher and lower. Physical death is not the
all-important event which theologians have usually made it out to be;
it is only a bend in the road. My own impression is that when we
individually pass through this crisis, we shall find the change to be
very slight. It will mean the dropping of the scales from the eyes,
and that is about all. The things we have been living for on this side
will only profit us in so far as they have gone to the building up of a
Christlike character. If a man has been living for false and unworthy
ideals, he will quickly find it out; the only possession he can take to
the other side of death is what he is. Belief in the atoning merits
and the finished work of a Saviour will not compensate for wasted
opportunities and selfish deeds; these latter will light the fires of
retribution as the soul awakes to its true condition, and then, and not
till then perhaps, will the indwelling Christ obtain His opportunity.
Nor will the absence of a formal creed shut any good man out of heaven;
it is impossible to shut a man out from what he is. What we sow we
reap, and we do so just because of what we fundamentally are. Every
road to evil ends in a _cul-de-sac_. Sooner or later every soul will
have to learn that it is no use kicking against the pricks; we must
learn by the consequences of our mistakes that, being what we are, the
children of the Highest, we cannot permanently rest in anything less
than the love of God. Salvation and Atonement are just as operative on
the other side of death as on this. The blind soul goes on for a while
in its blundering selfishness, and the Christ spirit, the spirit of
universal love, goes on seeking to win it to the truth. In the end the
truth must prevail if only because we shall have to learn that the lie
is not worth while.

+Evidence for immortality of the soul.+--No doubt there are some
readers of these pages who profess themselves agnostic or indifferent
with regard to the question of immortality, and I am not going to argue
with them. It seems to me probable that before very long it will be
impossible to deny it. The mass of evidence for the persistence of
individual self-consciousness after death is increasing rapidly and is
being subjected to the strictest scientific investigation. Men like
Sir Wi