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The fact that man desires immortality is proof enough that he was not born to perish. ‘Tis a “direct revelation” to the individual, if he will but heed it–will get out of the grime of the man-created city, with its artificialities, into the God- created country, where he may hear the “still small voice” speaking to that subtler sense, which in animals is instinct, in man is inspiration. There is no error in the ordering of the universe. It was not jumbled together by self-created “force,” operating in accordance with “laws” self-evolved from chaos, on matter which, like Mrs. Stowe’s juvenile nigger, “jis growed.” It is the work of a Master who “ordereth all things well.” Beauty might be born of Chance, but only Omniscience could have decreed the adoration it inspires. Hate might spring from the womb of Chaos, but Love must be the child of Order. Pain might be begotten of monsters, but only Infinite wisdom could have invented Sorrow. Nature does not put feathers on fishes, fins on birds, nor give aught that lives an impossible desire or an objectless instinct. Then why should man desire immortality, why should he fear annihilation more than the fires of Hell? During a third of his life he is unconscious, and annihilation is but an ever-dreamless sleep. Whether he sleeps the sleep of health or that of death, an hour and an eternity are the same to him; yet he desires the one and dreads the other. If man’s fierce longing for immortal life is not to be gratified, then is the whole universe a cruel lie; its wonderful arrangement from star to flower, its careful adaptation of means to ends, the provision for the satisfaction of every sense, an arrant fraud, a colossal falsehood. If there be no God, then is creation a calamity; if there be a God and no immortality for man, then it is a crime.

God does not reveal himself to beasts, nor to men of brutish minds. How can those who have no ear for music, no eye for beauty, hear the melody of the universe or comprehend the symmetry of the All? What need have those for immortality to whom love is only lust, charity a pander to pride, a full stomach the greatest good and gold a god? It is these who become “motive grinders,” dig genius out of the earth like spuds and goobers, and achieve perpetual motion by making the universe a self- operative machine needing neither key nor steam generator to “make it go.” They pride themselves, sometimes justly, on their reasoning powers; but the product of their logic-mill is like artificial flowers, as unprofitable as the icy kiss of the Venus de Medici. Of that knowledge gleaned in the Vale of Sorrow they know nothing; of that wisdom which cannot be demonstrated by the laws of logic they have no more conception than has a mole of the glories of the morning. They are of the earth earthy. To make them understand a message God would have to typewrite it, add the seal of a notary public and deliver it in person. They hear not the silver tones of Memnon, heed not the wondrous messages that come from the dumb lips of the dead. They search through musty tomes and explore long-forgotten languages to prove the rhapsodies of some old prophet false, while the grave of the babe that was buried yesterday is more than a prophecy–is an Ark of the Covenant.