GkazzaWs Alchemy of Happiness. 131 



If these foolish persons have one jot of sense, it will be 

 easy to convince them with a single word. One hundred 

 and twenty-four thousand prophets more or less, the whole 

 multitude of the saints and all the learned doctors of the 

 law have faithfully followed the Holy Law, have been dili- 

 gent in their devotions, and with prudent anxiety and 

 dread about the future state, they have endured much 

 pain and suffering. And how does it happen that you, 

 who are so ignorant and stupid, have found out that they 

 were mistaken and in error ? What should lead you to 

 prefer your baseless and corrupt fancies to their knowledge 

 and science, and to say that the spirit has no real exist- 

 ence and that it does not continue to live after death ? 

 Perhaps you do not even admit that there is any material 

 punishment. Truly the health of your moral being is so 

 corrupted and depraved, that there is no cure for you; you 

 belong to that class of whom God says in his holy word : 

 " Even when thou shalt call them into the right path, they 

 will never follow in it." 1 



If one of these men should, however, reply : " Indeed I 

 do not know for a certainty, but why should I on account 

 of an uncertainty, pass my precious life in devotional au- 

 sterities, and forbid myself the delights and pleasures of 

 the world?" We observe in return. According to your 

 principles, the probabilities are balanced as to whether the 

 events spoken of as belonging to the future world will or 

 will not happen. It follows then as a most rational con- 

 clusion, that you ought to act in the same way you would 

 do, if you wished to preserve yourself from a great risk 

 and danger. For, if these events should take place, you 

 may thereby be saved from intense torment and obtain 

 eternal felicity ; whereas, if they should not occur, you 

 will have suffered no injury from your precautions. We 



1 S. 18 : 5G. 



