356 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



thing again and again. Get up, worry 

 and work ; eat, lie down, sleep. What's 

 the use of it all? 



The man luho is never tempted to ask that 

 question has no imagination. 



Solomon, the writer, determined to 

 find out what is worth while in life. 



Is wisdom the thing greatly to be de- 

 sired? He made himself the wisest 

 man in the world, and discovered — 

 what ? 



In much wisdom is much grief; 

 And he that increaseth knowledge 

 Increaseth sorrow. 



From wisdom he turned to mirth, 

 only to find, as an end of living, that 

 "this also is vanity." 



He sought to give his heart unto 

 wine, and "to lay hold on folly" : and in 

 this also there was no satisfaction. 



Perhaps, then, he said to himself, 

 perhaps work is the one thing worth 

 while. To achieve something great — 

 to leave a monument for posterity to 

 wonder at. 



I made me great works; I builded me 

 houses; I planted me vineyards: . . . 



Then I looked on all the works that my 

 hands had wrought, and on the labor that 

 I had labored to do: and, behold, all was 

 vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was 

 no profit under the sun. 



Wisdom, mirth, wine, women, work, 

 fame — 



The ?nan ivho has not at some time sought 

 each one as a solution of the puzzle of life 

 has in him no spirit of adventure. 



But none of them satisfied Solomon. 



What, then, is the answer to the rid- 

 dle? WHiat will satisfy the soul of 

 man? What will n^ake his life seem to 

 have been worth while when he comes 

 to give it up? 



The answer is in the great last chap- 

 ter, which begins : 



Remcml)er now thy Creator 

 In the days of tliy youth, 

 While the evil days come not, 

 Nor the years draw nigh, 

 When thou shalt say, 

 I have no pleasure in them. 



To live straight and simply ; to do a 

 little kindness as one moves along; to 



love useful work ; to raise a worthy 

 family, and to leave the world a little 

 better than you found it — to do one's 

 daily duty in simple reverence — this is 

 the final answer. 



And the man icho, having passed through 

 his periods of questioning, and made his false 

 excursions into the varied by-paths, does not 

 come finally to this true road, has inisscd 

 real greatness. 



Justice Our Hope. 



In "The Sun," New York, a some- 

 what extended discussion has been 

 published in regard to the belief in 

 conscious immortality. The discussion 

 was started by a communication said 

 to have come from Sir Oliver Lodge's 

 son, who was last year killed in bat- 

 tle. Some of the ideas pro and con are 

 hardly worth putting into type, but 

 Louis Cortambert, one of the esteemed 

 Members of The Agassiz Association, 

 recently published a letter in which he 

 argues in behalf of justice as the solu- 

 tion. 



"When we consider," he says, "the 

 limitations of the human mind, which 

 depends upon the five senses for its im- 

 l)ressions, and possibly a vague, more 

 subtle sixth sense, it is doubtful wheth- 

 er we shall ever arrive at any solution 

 of the eternal qtiestion which will satis- 

 fy everybody, so we shall continue to 

 lean upon dogmas and theorites, in- 

 fluenced by thought and circumstances. 



"Rut the one fundamental principle 

 that is intelligible to all minds is the 

 jjrinciple of justice, and as the short 

 space of human life and conditions 

 which govern it are inadequate, we de- 

 pend tipon a future existence and a 

 Supreme Justice to square the account. 

 This seems the simplest explanation 

 of the hope for consciotis immortality." 



The finest results of natvire-study 

 consist in an absorbing fondness for 

 nature, in finding in her a solace and a 

 refreshment from the worry and care 

 of life, in gaining from her a culture 

 without cost to those for whom costly 

 ciilture is out of the question, best of 

 all, in feeling in her the throbbing in- 

 (Kvelling of a power not ourselves that 

 works for, not only righteotisness. but 

 for eternal uplift in all things. — S. C. 

 Schumucker, in "Nature-Study Re- 

 view." 



