and there has seemed
to be but one explanation. Job seemed to be in darkness, until at last
there flashed upon his mind this question, which is also a modified
affirmation, "If a man die shall he live again?" If he live again, then
it is possible that what seems to be unjust may be righted; and those
who have known only suffering and pain during their dwelling in the
flesh, may some time enter into the fruition of their discipline in the
joy and victory of the endless life. The more this argument is pondered
the stronger its force becomes. It carries conviction to all who are
deeply sensitive to the common human experience, and who at all
understand the misery and the suffering of human existence. One in the
fullness of his physical strength may think little about it, but that
deformed girl who asked her mother after service one Easter Day,
"Mother, is it true that in heaven I shall be as straight as you and
father?" is a type of millions of others. Some suffer in body and some
in mind; some have a heredity of insanity or vice--they are born with
shackles on their faculties. If they ever have a fair chance to grow
noble and beautiful, morally and spiritually, it must be after their
bodies have been laid aside. It cannot be said that they do not now
desire benefit and blessing, but it is evident that it is impossible for
their longing to be gratified. The conviction that this is a moral and
rational universe compels us to believe that some time and somewhere
those who suffer will escape from their pain, that those who are
burdened with the evil that has been inherited from past generations
will rise above it, and that the soul will be given an unhindered
opportunity for growth and advancement. The inequalities in the human
condition almost compel us to believe that the death of the body cannot
be the end of the spirit.

A little light on this subject comes from the faith of the world's
greatest teachers. As there are, now and then, those who see farther
than others with the physical eye, so there have been a few teachers who
have been rightly called seers, because their eyes have penetrated
farther into the mysteries of the universe than have those of their
fellow-men. Among the seers of the ages, I think that the two whom all
would recognize as being preeminent are Socrates and Jesus--the one the
finest flower of the intellectual development of Greece, and the other
the consummation of the hopes and visions of the most