The prospect of human destiny as opened up by Christianity is grand; but not too grand to be ascribed to Him who created the universe, and so arranged it that it should constitute one vast system of ministration to us. When we see God thus working for man, we cannot be surprised that angels should be glad to serve him too. Neither can we wonder that the Son of God should come to save him. The wonder begins with man's primary relation to the "all things," for our knowledge of which we are not dependent upon revelation at all. Science teaches us that; and revelation only endorses it. That is wonderful enough; but accepting it as a fact, all that revelation teaches, but which science could not have discovered, follows naturally enough. The facts of revelation concerning man may be accepted the more implicitly because they really have their basis in the facts of science. The whole is in perfect harmony. The one and the other are both represented--and consistently so--as concurring in the great cause of human happiness.
Try now from the greatness of the means to estimate the greatness of the end. Is eternal life too much for a being whom the worlds combine to sustain, to feed, and to bless? Is a heaven of holiness and of love too much for a being whom angels are delighted to protect? No! The wonderful thing would be if, after having combined these vast and various forces to maintain our earthly existence, an Almighty and All-good God should for ever quench our life after its brief day upon the earth!
It may be objected that this is a low and selfish view to take of the matter. It may be said that it is not the life of the individual, but the life of the race that has to be considered; and that it is enough for us to live, after we are gone, in the good remembrances of those who will survive us, and to hope that what we are doing will advance the interests of those who will follow us. An immortality such as this is in reality no immortality at all. An unconscious immortality! A public recognition of what we have been when we shall be no longer! A public gratitude, which may at best be but precarious to those to whom it is due, when they are believed to have dropped into nothingness and thus to be no longer capable of receiving and enjoying it! A progress merely confined to material interests! And who are sharing in it to-day? The few who are strong enough to hold their own in the battle of life! They, and only they! All this is supreme nonsense. The aspirations of the heart are against it. If man's life ends here, it was not worth while for him to be born. Millions, in that case, might justly look up to God and say, "Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast Thou made all men in vain?"