336 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



onlookers, does not seem to end all, or to break the 

 bonds of affection which had grown strong in this life. 



With impressive agreement, shared by those far 

 removed from each other, even ignorant of each other s 

 language, men have persisted in looking to the gates 

 of death as also gates of life, entrance to the path 

 way leading to another world. Gazing on these dark 

 portals, Obligation and Responsibility have seemed as 

 lamps shedding radiance behind and before, on the 

 Known and the Unknown. If at this crisis in life s 

 way, there be a stirring of fear, there is also a rising of 

 hope. To those uttering their parting word on the 

 confines of the Unseen, an experience so strange is 

 given, that it appears to them as if they had one foot 

 in this world, the other in a world invisible. 



If there be in the history of rational life, better 

 thought than this, clearer and more inspiring, it is 

 where Christian thought has sway. It is where men 

 believe that Jesus Christ has brought life and im 

 mortality to light through the Gospel ; where with 

 strength of faith they advance ; with brightened eye 

 they see Him with victor s hand opening the gate of 

 life ; while their ear vibrates to the tones of a gentle 

 voice, uttering words long familiar, I am the way, 

 and the truth, and the life. This is the grander 

 utterance, spoken for behoof of our whole race. It is 

 an utterance meeting the longings of humanity, in 

 conscious fulfilment of which life is at once enlarged. 

 The words proclaim Continuity of Life in a grander 

 sense than appears in the annals of natural history. 

 They are the promise of a life, having kinship with 

 the immortals, and which is itself prepared for fellow 

 ship with the Eternal Father of the spirits of men. 



