THERE is hardly a civilized man, to-day, no matter how hardheaded, who has not at some time or other dallied with the thought of life eternal. Even the materialist cannot but be intrigued by the thought, for if life is worth living, then a continuation of life, with a conceivable consummation of all a man's plans and hopes, is a prospect that pleases and stimulates the imagination. Indeed, the chief terror of the average busy man to-day is that life will be over before he has done all that he desires to do, achieved all his cherished ambitions, had his fill of life. Never was life quite so precious, so full of promise, hope, ambition, and men are beginning to be impatient with the grievous limitations imposed upon them by the life material, with its sharp penalties for overwork, its hampering sicknesses, indeed, its essential precariousness, and particularly with death, that ugly, inexorable full stop that haunts the idler and the worker alike. Men are beginning to make greater and greater demands upon life, and to refuse to submit to petty hampering physical restrictions. They are beginning to discover that a man need not be too old at seventy, and that death is something that can at least be put off, or staved off, so long as a man can contrive to retain his desire for, belief in, and expectation of activity. Thus, by what may be called purely natural means, the term of human life is being lengthened; men are ignoring the precedent, established by their grandfathers, of spending their final decade in a sort of dotage, a second childhood, a half comatose condition preparatory to that total inertia which is called death; indeed, the average alert human being to-day keeps in harness right up to the last.
Now all this is good in that it proves limitations to be merely relative, and in that it is a reaching out for that freedom which is the right and essence of spiritual man. It is, nevertheless, still material, still partial, still limited, as must be all conceptions of life and good and freedom that are not wholly spiritual. Actually, this new, better conception of life would of itself be worthless to help the race, for whether a man lives fifty years or a hundred, whether he works two hours a day or twenty, whether he makes a fortune or merely makes a living, whether he crowds four illustrious careers into his one life or merely labors at odd jobs, indeed, no matter what a man does, unless he has a right grasp of the truth of things, in the light of the fact that God is the only Life, this existence here and now is of very little consequence.
To the man, however, who has grasped the fact that God is truly All, and that, therefore, all that is unlike God is of no account, no matter how important or precious or fearful it seems, to that man the passing show, the pageant of the ages, the strife and struggle after the things of the world, are as nothing. Such a man can look upon the man who is at the top of the finite tree, and smile, for he knows that that man's success, power, and assurance are genuine only in proportion to his knowledge of God; and he cannot possibly envy the man, no matter how seemingly great, who does not yet understand that Life is eternal, continuous. Maybe that finitely great man is getting on in years, yet is still far from satisfied with his achievements, and is frantically striving against time to achieve his magnum opus, that final mighty achievement which he fondly hopes will send his name famous down the ages; and, with apprehensive eye, he looks over his shoulder in dread of his master, death, in terror lest it should come before all is done. Then comes, as Byron says:—
