In annual youth of beauty glows;
But when the pride of Nature dies,
Man, who alone is great and wise,
No more he rises into light,
The wakeless sleeper of eternal night.'"

"It reminds me," said Elder Staples, "of the sad burden of
Ecclesiastes, the mournfulest book of Scripture; because, while the
preacher dwells with earnestness upon the vanity and uncertainty of the
things of time and sense, he has no apparent hope of immortality to
relieve the dark picture. Like Horace, he sees nothing better than to
eat his bread with joy and drink his wine with a merry heart. It seems
to me the wise man might have gone farther in his enumeration of the
folly and emptiness of life, and pronounced his own prescription for the
evil vanity also. What is it but plucking flowers on the banks of the
stream which hurries us over the cataract, or feasting on the thin crust
of a volcano upon delicate meats prepared over the fires which are soon
to ingulf us? Oh, what a glorious contrast to this is the gospel of Him
who brought to light life and immortality! The transition from the
Koheleth to the Epistles of Paul is like passing from a cavern, where
the artificial light falls indeed upon gems and crystals, but is
everywhere circumscribed and overshadowed by unknown and unexplored
darkness, into the warm light and free atmosphere of day."

"Yet," I asked, "are there not times when we all wish for some clearer
evidence of immortal life than has been afforded us; when we even turn
away unsatisfied from the pages of the holy book, with all the
mysterious problems of life pressing about us and clamoring for
solution, till, perplexed and darkened, we look up to the still heavens,
as if we sought thence an answer, visible or audible, to their
questionings? We want something beyond the bare announcement of the
momentous fact of a future life; we long for a miracle to confirm our
weak faith and silence forever the doubts which torment us."

"And what would a miracle avail us at such times of darkness and strong
temptation?" said the Elder. "Have we not been told that they whom
Moses and the prophets have failed to convince would not believe
although one rose from the dead? That God has revealed no more to
us is to my mind sufficient evidence that He has revealed enough."

"May it not be," queried the Doctor, "that Infinite Wisdom sees that a
clearer and fuller revelation of the