lace to future
safety, and _self-denial_, according to the shrewd remark of Franklin,
is neither more nor less in the case of a prudent man than
_self-owning_, the recognition of his own dignity, and the preference of
a greater and more permanent to a smaller and transitory good. It might
still, therefore, be alike our interest and our duty to have _some_
regard to a possible future in the scheme of our present life. And aware
of this Mr. Holyoake solaces himself, and attempts to sustain the
spirits of his friends with the assurance, "Whatever is likely to secure
your best interests here will procure for you the same hereafter,"--a
strange inversion of the scriptural maxim, for it practically amounts to
this, "Seek first the things of this world, and the kingdom of heaven
shall be added unto you." And he states the ground or reason of his
confidence in this respect: "If there be other worlds to be inhabited
after this life, those persons will best be fitted for the enjoyment of
them who have made _the welfare of humanity their business in this_." To
make "the welfare of humanity their business in this life," is a duty
which may be discharged by the Christian not less than the Secularist,
and perhaps with all the greater zeal in proportion to his estimate of
men as responsible and immortal beings, all passing on, like himself, to
an interminable future. But if there be another state of being after
death, will he be best prepared for it who lives "without God" in this
world, without serious forethought in regard to his eternal prospects,
without any deliberate preparation for his certain and solemn change? Or
will it be a consolation to him _then_ to reflect that he disbelieved or
doubted now, and that he exerted his talents and spent his life on earth
in undermining the faith of his fellow-men, and weakening their
impressions of things unseen and eternal?

Mr. Holyoake seems to imagine that whether there be or be not a future
state after death, Secularism is the "safest side," and he puts the
alternative thus: "If there are other worlds to be inhabited after this
life, those persons will best be fitted for the enjoyment of them who
have made the welfare of humanity their business in this. But if there
are not other worlds, men are essentially losers by neglecting the
enjoyment of this." On either supposition, it would seem, the Secularist
has the advantage of the Christian: on the one, because he and not the
Christian, "