he alleged but disputed value of the hangman's whip overhanging the
witness-box, and from physicians on the working of beliefs about the
future life in the minds of the dangerously sick. And I could not help
thinking what a good thing it would be to draw out the present writer
upon his favorite borderland between the spiritual and the material."
The communication came to me, as the writer reminds me in a recent
letter, at a "painfully inopportune time," and though it was courteously
answered, was not made the subject of a special reply.

This request confers upon me a certain right to express my opinion on
this weighty subject without fear and without reproach even from those
who might be ready to take offence at one of the laity for meddling with
pulpit questions. It shows also that this is not a dead issue in our
community, as some of the younger generation seem to think. There are
some, there may be many, who would like to hear what impressions one has
received on the subject referred to, after a long life in which he has
heard and read a great deal about the matter. There is a certain gravity
in the position of one who is, in the order of nature very near the
undiscovered country. A man who has passed his eighth decade feels as
if he were already in the antechamber of the apartments which he may
be called to occupy in the house of many mansions. His convictions
regarding the future of our race are likely to be serious, and his
expressions not lightly uttered. The question my correspondent suggests
is a tremendous one. No other interest compares for one moment with that
belonging to it. It is not only ourselves that it concerns, but all whom
we love or ever have loved, all our human brotherhood, as well as our
whole idea of the Being who made us and the relation in which He stands
to his creatures. In attempting to answer my correspondent's question, I
shall no doubt repeat many things I have said before in different
forms, on different occasions. This is no more than every clergyman does
habitually, and it would be hard if I could not have the same license
which the professional preacher enjoys so fully.

Number Five and I have occasionally talked on religious questions, and
discovered many points of agreement in our views. Both of us grew up
under the old "Orthodox" or Calvinistic system of belief. Both of
us accepted it in our early years as a part of our education. Our
experience is a common one. William Cullen B