CHAPTER IV.

ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM THE

A

GRANDEUR OF ITS HOPES.

CONVINCING argument in favour of the Chris

tian religion is the incomparable grandeur of the hopes which it opens to mankind. Alone, of all the shrines at which man has worshipped, does it afford a sure and blessed hope of immortality. The heathen religions had only dim forebodings of the future state; the life to come was rather a theme for poets than an influential belief; indced, it had so weak a hold, even on philosophers, that the Scripture simply expresses the truth when it declares that "life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel." Till the Resurrection of Christ had unbarred the gates of death, there was no vital belief in the life to come among the Gentiles, and but a feeble one among the Jews. From that time forth the immortality of the soul has been an axiom

wherever the Gospel of Christ has been received. And how vastly superior to the pictures of human fancy is the Christian revelation of the future state! Compare the Elysian Fields of Virgil or the sensual Paradise of Mahomet with the New Jerusalem of revelation. In the first we have the Trojan heroes pursuing their former sports amid shady groves, and amusing themselves with horses and. armour, the copies of what they did battle with on earth. The Mahomedan falls below even the Pagan ideal; for his Heaven is one of gross physical indulgence, where all the appetites of the body are gratified on an exaggerated scale. But hark what the Seer of Patmos beheld of the Christians' Home in Glory. "And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God, and God shall wipe away all tears' from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow or crying, neither shall there be any

more pain, for the former things are passed away." Again, "He carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of Heaven from God, having the glory of God, and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasperstone, clear as crystal. . . . . And I saw no temple cherein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it, and the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof, and the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it, and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there, and they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it, and there shall in nowise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life."

Where shall we find, outside the book of inspiration, imagery so sublime as this? Where shall we find hopes so fitted to elevate the soul of man,

and carry it triumphantly across the dark river of death? The Christian religion alone of all others has stripped the charnel-house of its terrors, and enabled the believer to say, "O, death, where is thy sting? O, grave, where is thy victory ?” Contrast with these joyful expectations the cold and feeble light which Deism casts upon the grave; it shuts out of view the Resurrection of Christ, for its system is complete without it; it bases its hopes of immortality upon the dim gropings after a future state which reason and the light of nature supply; but it has no comfort to offer the trembling soul about to depart, naked and solitary, into the presence of that Holy One whose eye cannot look upon iniquity; it has no Saviour to present to the burdened conscience, shrinking from the disclosure of all its past life to the Judge from whom nothing can be hid. It exhorts to a general trust in the mercy of God; but the soul wants something stronger to lean upon; it craves after the sure Word of God, and this is found nowhere except in Holy Writ. Weak and feeble are the best consolations that human philosophy can offer to the dying, compared with these weighty words

which inspired wisdom has placed on record. Nowhere can the value of our religion be tested better than at that supreme crisis; if it is worth anything it is a sheet-anchor then. Who ever heard of a dying Christian repenting of his religion; who ever knew of one regretting that he had loved Christ too much, and served Him too well! Can the same be said of the votaries of Deism? We have heard strange tales of the last hours of Voltaire, of Rousseau, of Tom Paine, and even of that coldblooded sceptic, David Hume. We question if many opponents of Christianity, standing on the confines of eternity, have viewed their past life with satisfaction; we question if any, with their life to spend over again, would choose to have it the same. We are certain that many would gladly change lots with the dying Christian.

The fact is, Christianity comes in with Divine power just at the point where all forms of human religion break down. It faces boldly the mysteries connected with death, and gloriously solves them. Other religions are confounded at the dreary contrast between the goodness of God and the painful dissolution of the creatures He has made.