ife and death and
struggle for immortality!

That this effect of accountability to God was felt by the inspired
writers, cannot be doubtful to any who weigh such language as this:

"So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us
not, therefore judge one another any more, but _judge this rather,
that no man put a stumbling block, or an occasion to fall in his
brother's way_."

By making man important in the sight of God, he becomes sacred to his
fellow. The more grand and far-reaching are the divine claims, the
greater is our conception of the scope and worth of being. Human
rights become respected in the ratio in which human responsibility is
felt. Whatever objections men may hold to Puritanism--their theory
since the days of St. Augustine has constantly produced tendencies to
liberty and a prevalent belief in the natural _rights of man_--and on
account of that very feature which to many, has been so offensive--its
rigorous doctrine of human accountability. Here, then, is the idea of
man which Christianity gives in contrast with the inferior and
degrading heathen notions of man. He is a being but _begun_ on
earth--a seed only planted here for its first growth. He is connected
with God, not as all matter is by proceeding from creative power, but
by partaking the divine nature, by the declared personal affection of
God, witnessed and sealed by the presence and sufferings of the
world's Redeemer. He is a being upon whom is rolled the responsibility
of character and eternal destiny! Of such a creature it were as
foolish to take an estimate, by what he _is_ and what he can _do_ in
this life, as it would be to estimate by an eagle's egg, what the old
eagle is worth, with wings outspread far above the very thunder, or
coming down upon its quarry as the thunder comes! It is the Future
that gives value to the Present. It is Immortality only that reaches
down a measure wherewith to gauge a man. If a heathen measures, the
strong are strong, and the weak are weak: the rich, the favored, must
rule, and their shadow must dwarf all others. If a Christian measures,
he hears a voice saying: "_There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is
neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for ye are
all one in Christ Jesus._ Whosoever shall do the will of my Father,
which is in heaven, the same is my mother, and sister, and brother."

These are the things that give value to man.

It is not to be said that the