a great many people is based, more or less
consciously, upon the notion that the message of Christianity--or, if
you like to call it so, of the gospel; or, if you like to call it more
vaguely, religion--has to do mainly with blessings and woes beyond the
grave, and that there is plenty of time to attend to it when we get
nearer the end.

Now is it true that 'he prophesies of times that are far off'? Yes! and
No! Yes! it is true, and it is the great glory of Christianity that it
shifts the centre of gravity, so to speak, from this poor, transient,
contemptible present, and sets it away out yonder in an august and
infinite future. It brings to us not only knowledge of the future, but
certitude, and takes the conception of another life out of the region of
perhapses, possibilities, dreads, or hopes, as the case may be, and sets
it in the sunlight of certainty. There is no more mist. Other faiths,
even when they have risen to the height of some contemplation of a
future, have always seen it wrapped in nebulous clouds of possibilities,
but Christianity sets it clear, definite, solid, as certain as
yesterday, as certain as to-day.

It not only gives us the knowledge and the certitude of the times that
are afar off, and that are not times but eternities, but it gives us, as
the all-important element in that future, that its ruling characteristic
is retribution. It 'brings life and immortality to light,' and just
because it does, it brings the dark orb which, like some of the double
stars in the heavens, is knit to the radiant sphere by a necessary
band. It brings to light, with life and immortality, death and woe. It
is true--'he prophesies of times that are far off' and it is the glory
of the gospel of Christ's revelation, and of the religion that is based
thereon, that its centre is beyond the grave, and that its eye is so
often turned to the clearly discerned facts that lie there.

But is that all that we have to say about Christianity? Many
representations of it, I am free to confess, from pulpits and books and
elsewhere, do talk as if that was all, as if it was a magnificent thing
to have when you came to die. As the play has it, 'I said to him that I
hoped there was no need that he should think about God yet,' because he
was not going to die. But I urge you to remember, dear brethren, that
all that prophesying of times that are far off has the closest bearing
upon this transient, throbbing moment, because, for one thi