Our ally is reliable. It will work for our wclfarti if wo deal 

 with it honestly. Through its aid we can realize the great 

 humanitarian ideals which well up fi'om the fountain of our 

 Christian life. Her ways to the uninstruoted may be fickle 

 Bs the restless sea, but to the modem mind they are ordered 

 and sure. A Scotchman and his wife were pa.ying their 

 first visit to Edinburgh. Their home was in Blantyre, the 

 birthplace of Livingstone, the groat African missionary and 

 explorer. Knowing that a speaking statue of him was in 

 Princes Street Gardens they sought it out, caane up to it, 

 and st-anding, looking up in silent admiration tO' tl:ie stiTong 

 yet kindly face that never turned aside from its goal, he 

 was heai'd to say, partly to himself and partly to his wife, 

 "There's na come an' gang -there." So it can bo said of 

 nature. It creates in us a &eme of assurance. We trust it, 

 and in our momentis of our deepest insight, we feel that our 

 co-worker is our other self. "For nature with man left out 

 is not nature, but a fragment of her real self — a fragment, 

 too, that leaves the highest uceoipressed. But place man 

 in nature and nature in man ; let nature produce him and 

 lot him express her meaning and wc have no longer the im- 

 possible task of deducing the living from the dead. 'Man 

 throws fresh light on the processes which have brought 

 him into being; explains each backward step in the circle 

 and imprints his presence on all lifeless things.' " Thua 

 man, as the intei'pretcr and mtorp rotation of nature, has 

 progressed from one stage of civilization to another, and 

 to-day he is more optimistic than ever. On tlic brave ship 

 of humoinity we sail over the ocean of time, looking ahead 

 ^^■ith questioning, yet hopeful eyes; gi'owhag in courage as 

 we advance to the horizon which ever rece-des before us. 

 Does the voyage thus far tell us a.ny thing of the voyage 

 beyond the line where the horizon dips out of sight? In 

 other words, what of the progressive development of human 

 life in the future? Particularly of man's most compelling 

 and persistent hope — I mean the hope of immortality ? Is 

 it a reasonable hope? Does modern knowledge weaken or 



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