THE TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE 



ward path was never intended to be easy. The 

 scriptural passages to this effect you can find all 

 through the gospels and epistles, and I need not quote 

 them to you. I will, however, tell you honestly that 

 many are of the opinion that these passages are now 

 obsolete, being applicable only to the first centuries, or 

 to especially critical times in the history of the church. 

 I cannot share that view, but, lest I seem too old- 

 fashioned, will merely quote the ringing words of our 

 own Dr. Hitchcock, that " no man ever enters heaven 

 save on his shield." And allow me to quote in the 

 same connection the testimony of that prince of scien- 

 tists, Professor Huxley, in his lecture on " Evolution 

 and Ethics : ' 



" If we may permit ourselves a larger hope of abate- 

 ment of the essential evil of the world than was pos- 

 sible to those who, in the infancy of exact knowledge, 

 faced the problem of existence more than a score of 

 centuries ago, I deem it an essential condition of the 

 realization of that hope that we should cast aside the 

 notion that the escape from pain and sorrow is the 

 proper object of life. 



" We have long since emerged from the heroic child- 

 hood of our race, when good and evil could be met 

 with the same ' frolic welcome ; ' the attempts to es- 

 cape from evil, whether Indian or Greek, have ended 

 in flight from the battle-field ; it remains to us to throw 

 aside the youthful over-confidence and the no less 

 youthful discouragement of nonage. We are grown 

 men, and must play the man 



. . . " 'strong in will 

 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,' 



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