aying to the
believers of a creed different from their own, "I told you so"? Are not
others oppressed with the thought of the great returns which will be
expected of them as the product of their great gifts, the very limited
amount of which they do not suspect, and will be very glad to learn,
even at the expense of their self-love, when they are called to
their account? If the ways of the Supreme Being are ever really to be
"justified to men," to use Milton's expression, every human being may
expect an exhaustive explanation of himself. No man is capable of
being his own counsel, and I cannot help hoping that the ablest of the
archangels will be retained for the defence of the worst of sinners.
He himself is unconscious of the agencies which made him what he is.
Self-determining he may be, if you will, but who determines the self
which is the proximate source of the determination? Why was the A self
like his good uncle in bodily aspect and mental and moral qualities,
and the B self like the bad uncle in look and character? Has not a man
a right to ask this question in the here or in the hereafter,--in this
world or in any world in which he may find himself? If the All-wise
wishes to satisfy his reasonable and reasoning creatures, it will not
be by a display of elemental convulsions, but by the still small voice,
which treats with him as a dependent entitled to know the meaning of
his existence, and if there was anything wrong in his adjustment to
the moral and spiritual conditions of the world around him to have full
allowance made for it. No melodramatic display of warring elements, such
as the white-robed Second Adventist imagines, can meet the need of
the human heart. The thunders and lightnings of Sinai terrified and
impressed the more timid souls of the idolatrous and rebellious caravan
which the great leader was conducting, but a far nobler manifestation of
divinity was that when "the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man
speaketh unto his friend."

I find the burden and restrictions of rhyme more and more troublesome
as I grow older. There are times when it seems natural enough to employ
that form of expression, but it is only occasionally; and the use of it
as the vehicle of the commonplace is so prevalent that one is not much
tempted to select it as the medium for his thoughts and emotions. The
art of rhyming has almost become a part of a high-school education, and
its practice is far from being an evide