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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



cling to it as an intellectual creed, but are accus- 

 tomed to say and feel that, without it as a solace 

 and a hope to rest upon, this world would be 

 stripped of its deepest fascinations. It is from 

 minds of this age, whose vigor is unimpaired and 

 whose relish for the joys of earth is most expan- 

 sive, that the most glowing delineations of heaven 

 usually proceed, and on whom the thirst for fe- 

 licity and knowledge, which can be slaked at no 

 earthly fountains, has the most exciting power. 

 Then comes the busy turmoil of our mid-career, 

 when the present curtains off the future from our 

 thoughts, and when a renewed existence in a 

 different scene is recalled to our fancy chiefly in 

 crises of bereavement. And, finally, is it not the 

 case that in our fading years — when something 

 of the languor and placidity of age is creeping 

 over us, just when futurity is coming consciously 

 and rapidly more near, and when one might nat- 

 urally expect it to occupy us more* incessantly 

 and with more anxious and searching glances — 

 we think of it less frequently, believe in it less 

 confidently, desire it less eagerly, than in our 

 youth ? Such, at least, hss been my observation 

 and experience, especially among the more re- 

 flective and inquiring order of men. The life of 

 the hour absorbs us most completely, as the 

 hours grow fewer and less full; the pleasures, 

 the exemptions, the modest interests, the after- 

 noon peace, the gentle affections, of the present 

 scene, obscure the future from our view, and ren- 

 der it, curiously enough, even less interesting 

 than the past. To-day, which may be our last, 

 engrosses us far more than to-morrow, which may 

 be our forever; and the grave into which we 

 are just stepping down troubles us far less than 

 in youth, when half a century lay between us 

 and it. 



What is the explanation of this strange phe- 

 nomenon ? Is it a merciful dispensation arranged 

 by the Ruler of our life to soften and to ease a 

 crisis which would be too grand and awful to 

 be faced with dignity or calm, if it were actually 

 realized at all ? Is it that thought — or that vague 

 substitute for thought which we call time — has 

 brought us, half unconsciously, to the conclusion 

 that the whole question is insoluble, and that re- 

 flection is wasted where reflection can bring us 

 no nearer to an issue ? Or, finally, as I know is 

 true far often er than we fancy, is it that three- 

 score years and ten have quenched the passionate 

 desire for life with which at first we stepped upon 

 the scene ? We are tired, some of us, with un- 

 ending and unprofitable toil; we are satiated, 

 others of us, with such ample pleasures as earth 



can yield us ; we have had enough of ambition, 

 alike in its successes and its failures ; the joys 

 and blessings of human affection on which, what- 

 ever their crises and vicissitudes, no righteous or 

 truthful man will east a slur, are yet so blended 

 with pains which partake of their intensity ; the 

 thirst for knowledge is not slaked, indeed, but 

 the capacity for the labor by which alone it can 

 be gained has consciously died out ; the appetite 

 for life, in short, is gone, the frame is worn and 

 the faculties exhausted ; and — possibly this is 

 the key to the phenomenon we are examining — 

 age cannot, from the very law of its nature, con- 

 ceive itself endowed with the bounding energies of 

 youth, and without that vigor, both of exertion 

 and desire, renewed existence can offer no inspir- 

 ing charms. Our being upon earth has been en- 

 riched by vivid interests and precious joys, and 

 we are deeply grateful for the gift ; but we are 

 wearied with one life, and feel scarcely qualified 

 to enter on the claims, even though balanced by 

 the felicities and glories, of another. It may be 

 the fatigue which comes with age — fatigue of the 

 fancy as well as of the frame ; but, somehow, 

 what we yearn for most instinctively at last is 

 rest, and the peace which we can imagine the 

 easiest because we know it best is that of sleep. 



Rev. BALDWIN BROWN.— The theologians 

 appear to have fallen upon evil days. Like some 

 of old, they are filled with rebuke from all sides. 

 They are bidden to be silent, for their day is 

 over. But some things, like Nature, are hard 

 to get rid of. Expelled, they " recur " swiftly. 

 Foremost among these is theology. It seems as 

 if nothing could long restrain man from this, the 

 loftiest exercise of his powers. The theologians 

 and the Comtists have met in the sense which 

 Mr. Huxley justly indicates ; he is himself work- 

 ing at the foundations of a larger, nobler, and 

 more complete theology. But, for the present, 

 theology suffers affliction, and the theologians 

 have in no small measure themselves to thank 

 for it. The protest rises from all sides, clear and 

 strong, against the narrow, formal, and, in these 

 last days, selfish system of thought and expecta- 

 tion, which they have presented as their kingdom 

 of heaven to the world. 



I never read Mr. Harrison's brilliant essays, 

 full as they always are of high aspiration and of 

 stimulus to noble endeavor, without finding the 

 judgment which I cannot but pass in my own 

 mind on his unbeliefs and denials, largely tem- 

 pered by thankfulness. I rejoice in the passion- 

 ate earnestness with which he lifts the hearts of 

 his readers to ideals which it seems to me that 



