74 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



I came home that day a wiser, and, I hope, a better 

 man. 



May I venture to tell you what some of my reflections 

 were? First, that if there be a future life it appeals to 

 our reason that it must have some connection with our 

 present condition. 



In the object to which I am directing your attention, 

 it certainly appears doesn't it ? tbat everything around 

 it and within it was preliminary and preparatory to a 

 future state, a segment only of a circle, and not the 

 whole. Then, if all this wisdom has been displayed in 

 the life of so humble a creature as a gnat, is it not most 

 reasonable to believe that it will find its completion in 

 the life of a man ? Then naturally follows the question, 

 If we, too, are preparing for something in a future life, 

 should we not ask ourselves, What is it ? Clearly the so- 

 called "death" of the first stage in the life of the insect 

 was not ceasing to be, but only ceasing to be in that stage. 

 The imago that is, the final state of a gnat's life is the 

 putting on of a new existence for which the two pre- 

 paratory states were fitting it. The decay of the old body 

 was necessary in order that the final state might be 

 reached. The future life, you see clearly, was myste- 

 riously wrapped up in the chrysalis, only waiting to be 

 unrolled. The gnat received with its earliest being t':e 

 germ of all that it was to be hereafter ; and do you think 

 all this would have been bestowed upon an insect and not 

 given to a man, therefore to such as you and me ? 



Do you not see what splendid possibilities are within 

 u=?, and, therefore, what tremendous responsibilities are 

 around us ? The whole record of our immortality is laid 

 up within us now; and it is only the mortal envelope 

 that encloses it, which prevents it being visible. But the 

 Almighty One has lovingly given us spiritual truth in 



