328 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



There may be no hereafter or there may ; but the 

 Christian has an ideal life in prospect in hope. 



He knows he must die sooner or later, according to 

 natural law, and he is prepared to go, whenever his turn 

 may come. As long as he is in this world he uses it 

 without abusing it. All his faculties, aesthetic, pursuit 

 of knowledge, love of science, etc., as well as moral and 

 ethical traits are exercised to the full. Why should he 

 fear death ? " Perfect Love casteth out fear. " 



Why is it that so many Rationalists write pages of 

 pessimistic words about physical evils ? Thus writes the 

 anonymous author in one of several passages of his 

 book : " Does God, as revealed in Nature, show more 

 regard for the moral growth of man than for the stability 

 of the heavens ? The answer of every thoughtful and 

 candid observer must be that he recks no more of man 

 and his physical and moral growth than of the flies 

 which in early autumn are swept out of existence by the 

 blighting frost of a single night. What does God care 

 for the moral growth of the multitudes of human beings 

 whom he destroys by the frightful agency of earthquakes 

 and volcanic eruptions?" . . . "Mr. Balfour may reply 

 that this physical destruction is not of cardinal impor- 

 tance in connection with his argument, and that the 

 moral growth ceases here only to be resumed in some 

 celestial sphere. But how does he know this ? ... In 

 the absence of evidence to the contrary, we are bound to 

 conclude that death is the end of man, and that the 

 moral growth which is extinguished on earth is extin- 

 guished for ever." ^ 



This is the writer who says : " This so-called know- 

 ledge [he is speaking of the knowledge of God] must be 



^ Mr. Balfour's Apologetics, p. 201. 



