Part 31

That there is a future most of us agree, because good sense and logic point to that sane and reasonable conclusion. So be it. With a belief in the future estate, it is reasonable to assume that our acts and lives in the present will have influence on our future estate.

We know positively of to-day; we know the happiness we can get from good deeds done to-day. We come to this knowledge by experience.

If we will have power in the future to look back on to-day's acts, well and good if to-day's acts are worth while.

The other view, that Eternity is everything and the present is nothing, is the antiquated view, the narrow view--the, I might say, illiterate view.

That view warps the present life; it calls for present self-chastisement, present gloom, present sorrow and present misery.

It takes the tangible definite to-day, calls it nothing, and accepts the intangible unknown eternity as everything.

It trades the definite for the indefinite. It calls life a bubble, a vapor, a shadow. In fact, it throws a pall over to-day's sunshine, and regards our earthly life as a sort of purgatory--a dismal unhappy punishment ante-chamber where man exists and waits, peeping out of his cell windows for a little imagined view of eternity.

He waits and endures the unpleasant interval, steeled against the definite pleasures of to-day, his whole outlook colored by a fanatical and intoxicated belief in the expected happiness of the undefined future.

He refuses to think of the definite life of to-day that we all know, and spoils the thought of those who do.

He is a blockade to progress, a disagreeable part of life's picture.

He gets no happiness in the to-day which is in his hands; he loses his opportunity to be of service here, and lives in the hope of a vague and nebulous future state which has no connection with the realities of every-day life.

Both theories as ultimate beliefs are wrong, yet each has some truth in its conclusion.

By taking the words "Eternity" and "Present" and saying that both mean everything, we avoid extremes and form a truth that is rational, and harmonious to good reason.

The man who says that the present is all, does so because he is an utilitarian. He reasons from the definite and the seeable, and refuses to believe in the abstract. Anything that is outside the sphere of his vision and action is of little concern to him.

The man who says eternity is all, wastes a golden opportunity and warps himself into a miserable hermit.

Life is irrevocable. Every act in our life is placed, set, and fixed.

Every act goes in the record book of yesterday, and it cannot be changed.

Acts that hurt others will rebound and hurt us. Deeds that help others will rebound and help us. This much is certain.

There is a future, I believe that. There is a God, I believe that.

Just what the future is, and just what God is, I do not know in perfect detail.

Reward for good and punishment for evil is part of God's plan, and I am conscious of this truth.

I know that justice prevails in this life, and this life is what I am living now.

If I live and act to-day in accordance with what I sincerely believe is in tune with God's purpose, I shall, in my future estate, benefit by those acts. If I live and act to-day in disregard of all around me, selfishly catering to my personal desires and believing that eternity is everything and the present nothing, I am neglecting the opportunity to do good now in the hope of a future personal reward, the very nature of which is unknowable. I shall therefore strive to do, and to be, right--to be kind, helpful, cheery and smiling now, for the reward such acts bring now.

And I shall doubtless have as good a record and passport to the future as the man who suffers now and lives only upon his selfish hope of the future.

His is the faith of fear, mine the faith of reason in the all-wise, all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing Ruler of the universe, who gave me my life, my brain, my reason, which I am trying to use, as well as my limitations will permit, in helping myself and helping others to smile, to be happy, to be serene, to be confident, to be competent, to be useful.

Everything lives and dies in accordance with the plan of the Creator of the Universe, and you are an atom and I am an atom in that Universe, which is governed by a power too big and too great for us to comprehend.

Verily we presume when we say: "We have all the truth; think as we do or you are lost."

The old world has not told its full story. The Universe of which this world is a part is still a deep, unfathomable mystery.