THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3777, 9 November 1907, Page 3

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.

Life is a school. This world is a house of instruction. It is not a prison nor a penitentiary, nor a palace of ease, nor an amphitheatre for games and spectacles: it is a school. And this view of life is the onty one that answers the great question, solves the great prolem of life. For what is life given? If for enjoyment alone, if for suffering merely, it is a chaos of contradictions. But iffor moral and spiritual learning, then everything is full of significance —full of wisdom. And this view, too, is of the utmost practical importance. It immediately presents to us, and presses upon the question —What are we learning ? And is not this, truly, the great question ? When your son comes home to you at the annual vacation, it is the first question in your thoughts concerning him ; and you ask him, or you ask for the certificates and testimonials of his teachers, to give you some evidence of his learning ! At every passing term in the great school of life, also, this is the all-important question. What has a man got from the experience, fdiscipline, opportunity of any past period ? Not what he has gathered together in the shape of any tangible good ; but what has he got —in that other and eternal treasure house — his mind.