attention, and as if no answer had been given to them. A new age, with new needs and a new science, refuses to accept the solution of a former age, or with fresh hope and irrepressible eagerness insists that the problem, which baffled the thinkers of the past, is not beyond the reach of the thinkers of the present. Among these questions, none possesses a more universal, a more commanding interest, than the question of a FUTURE Life.

"Who knoweth whether the spirit of man goeth upward, and whether the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth?" This was the question wrung from the Preacher in the bitterness of his thoughts, as in the absence of any clear and positive revelation concerning the future, he tried to read the riddle of the world. A selfish life had darkened his heart, and brought him to the verge of a sceptical philosophy. He was weary of the world, weary of the injustice which he beheld, and, ready to accept the conclusion that there was no moral Governor of the Universe, he was ready also to accept the conclusion that man perished like the beasts. And hence he took refuge inevitably in that doctrine which might have come from the mouth of Epicurus: "Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who knoweth what shall be after him?" Happily the Preacher did not rest in this solution of the problem. Happily God led him through the painful discipline of life, through much

disappointment and much sadness of heart to a nobler faith. Happily we see him emerging from that tangled forest in which he had so long wandered, torn by its thickets, and poisoned by its miasma, and bitten by its deadly snakes, and coming forth into the light of God's love and truth, and looking with calm eye on death, and even beyond death, and teaching to others that lesson of highest wisdom which he had learnt himself: "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man. For God shall bring every work into judgement with every secret thing whether it be good or bad."

The question of the Preacher has since then been put again and again. Men are never weary of asking it, never weary of seeking an answer. Even in this age, with its singularly positive spirit, with its utilitarian tendencies, this question is so far from being thrust aside, that it presents itself in quarters where we should least expect it. Even in this age which has been termed "the golden age of the exact sciences, and of industry, and the iron age of metaphysics'," when men seem to have grown weary of abstract speculations, are almost afraid to think, and are absorbed in the study of facts, material results, the practical applications of science, still the shadow of that other world of mystery haunts them. It "broods o'er them like the Day, a master o'er a slave," "a Presence which is not to be put by."

1 E. Saisset.

4

It is a question which forces itself upon us, [LECT. They cannot escape from it. The mind most averse to what it considers speculative and therefore fruitless researches, the heart most engrossed in the pursuit of earthly good, will have its moments of awakening, its hours of weariness and dissatisfaction, when some whisper of these strange problems will reach it, What am I? Whence came I? Whither am I going? What is the end which awaits me?

These questions, arising as it were spontaneously, cannot but suggest others as the result of reflection. What is my body, that admirable, but fragile machine which the slightest shock breaks to atoms? Organized matter,-the subject of hourly incessant changes, through which, as through a sieve, there passes an ever-renewed wave of changing particles. Must there not then, if my body is to keep the form which constitutes it, must there not be in it something which has the power to hold it together, some hidden force, some principle of life? And then besides my organic life, do I not perceive within me something which reasons, which suffers, which hopes, which rejoices, which wills, which wills not, a thought, a soul? How marvellous is my nature! A moment since, when I looked only at my body, I thought myself a being of wonderful simplicity: now I see in myself two beings-perhaps three; first my body, then the animal life, and then beyond that life, another life more mysterious still. What am I then? A double or triple being? or is this complication only apparent,

thought being only a superior degree of life, and life only a property of organized matter?

When once such questions are proposed, it is dif ficult to set them aside. For if I am nothing but a body analogous to those which I see around me, I shall have the end of the worm I crush, of the grass which I tread beneath my feet. A child of the dust, when I give back my bones to the dust, I shall give back to it all that I am. Then the philosophy of despair is all that is left to me; "That which befalleth man befalleth beasts; as the one dieth, so dieth the other." If, on the other hand, there is in me a principle independent of the body, then that is a true philosophy which says that "man is not a plant of the earth, but a plant of heaven" (púтov oùк EYYELOV, ȧλλ' ovρávov), and then the present life, which but now was everything to me, is but a day, an hour, a moment, in sight of the eternity which awaits me.

It is obvious that our whole life must take a colouring from the conclusion at which we arrive. It is obvious that this is no merely theoretical question, however men may be disposed to treat it. It enters into the very heart of our being. If we are but children of the dust doomed to return to the dust, then let this world absorb our cares and bound our thoughts. If we are heirs of immortality, then let our life here be guided by those principles and shaped to those ends which will best fit us for the life to come.

I propose, in this course of Lectures, to examine some of the grounds on which our hope of Immorta

lity rests: I propose to show, that in Christ only and the Revelation of Christ is to be found the answer to the question of the text. With this object in view, I shall first of all glance at some of the attempts, which have recently been made, to answer the question, either in a sense adverse to Christianity, or without any recognition of its claims. I shall then review the history of belief, so far as this doctrine is concerned, first among the Pagans and next among the Jews. And, lastly, I shall hope to show that whereas, apart from Christianity, we are left only to dim guesses and uncertain conjectures, Christ Jesus has "brought life and immortality to light," and has met and satisfied the deep instincts of the human heart, and the hopes of the world.

It will indeed be impossible to offer more than the outline of so vast a subject in the space allotted to these Lectures. I cannot doubt that I am speaking in the presence of some who will discover defects of knowledge or of method in what I shall advance. But as they will also know better than others, how widely attempts have been made, both in Germany and in France, on the one hand, to substitute a pantheistic absorption for the hope of a personal immortality, and on the other hand, to overthrow all belief in the existence of the soul after death; and how such doctrines have been welcomed and propagated, in our own country, by men who claim to be thinkers and philosophers, they will feel that some attempt to grapple with this question is not out of place, and