become able
to enter the realm of perfect goodness. And so He sent the semblance
of a great Fire into the Universe, which should seem utterly to destroy
all things which He had made, and to cut off the hope and possibility
of a future perception and life eternal.

* * * * *

As the fire rolls on, devouring all that it meets, humanity on the Road
sees its advance, and realises that in the course of a few hours the
Universe will be reduced to a smouldering cinder, that its hopes for a
future life, where the Road ends, is cut short and never to be
realised, and that apparently its former belief, albeit a vague and
ill-defined one, in a God who is all-merciful and kind, was altogether
an illusion, and merely a cause for false confidence and
self-righteousness. And how will it stand the test? Would the good or
the bad element in human nature assert itself in the face of absolute
annihilation? It is obvious that with such a position several of the
possible and no doubt ordinary motives for goodness, such as the idea
of doing good in order to reap benefits or escape punishment in a
future existence, and of doing good for the sake of having it
recognised among others, are excluded from the proposition. Even the
idea of doing good because it is in accordance with a "will of God" is
excluded, since the idea of destruction coming from the direction of
the End is unheard of to man, and is in direct contradiction to his
ideas of God. We are brought, therefore, down to the very foundation;
and the question we have to answer becomes--Is one of the elements of
human nature a feeling of necessity to pursue goodness for its own
sake, quite apart from any motives?

In the first place, when a supreme danger such as that already
described is rapidly approaching humanity, if such a thing could be,
what would be the immediate result? We know that with the ordinary
dangers, such as shipwreck and air-raid, the tendency among people
gathered together in large numbers is to panic, to herd together and
become temporarily deprived of normal reasoning powers. Would this be
the result of the sight of approaching universal destruction? Surely
not. Panic is the result, I believe, not of approaching danger simply,
but necessarily of a danger which threatens to affect some of a number
of people more than others, and which there is a possibility of
avoiding. It is entirely the element of uncertainty or suspense whic