A FUTURE LIFE.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 734, 1 March 1877, Page 3

A FUTURE LIFE.

ALi arguments are to be taken, no so much as proofs of a future life as proofs of man's resolution to hold that doctrine. They are inadequate to demonstrate its 'soundness, but amply sufficient to ; show that the belief being m man's mind (he knows not how nor whence), he is determined to maintain it, curious to account for it, anxious to justify it. Erroneously conceiving that it must be a a product of reason, he diligently looks about to discover the logical processes which Lave generated it, and clings to the shallowest crudities rather than surrender (as he conceives) the title-deeds of his faith. \ . ' The truth we believe to be, that a future existence is, and must be, a matter of intuition, not of inference. The intellect may imagine it, but could never have discovered it, and can 1 never prove it — the soul must have revealed it; must ,and does perpetually reveal it. This appears to me the only foundation on which the belief m a future life can legitimately rest, at least to those who do not accept a miraculous external revelation. It is a belief anterior to reasoning, independent of reasoning, unproveable by reasoning ; and yet as no logic can demonstrate its unsonndness. or can bring more than negative evidence to oppose to it, I can hold it with a simplicity, an undoubted faith, which is never granted to the conclusions of the understanding. . The only occasion on -which a shade of doubt has passed over my conviction of a future existence has been when I have rashly endeavoured to make out a case, to give a reason for the faith that is m me, to assign ostensible and logical grounds for my belief. At such times,, and still more when I have heard others attempting to prove the existance of a future world by arguments which could satisfy no one by whom argumennt -were needed, I confess that a chill dismay has often struck into my heart, and a fluctuating darkness has lowered down Upon my creed, to be dissipated only when I had again left inference and induction far be hind, and once more suffered the soul to take council with itself. . It is an immense advantage gained, when we have decided that it is not from the logical faculty that our knowledge on spiritual topics is to be gained. We can then afford to be honest — to give reason and analysis fair play — to shrink from no conclusion, however unwelcome to our speculations, which they may force upon us; for after they have done all they can to correot, to negative, to ascertain, we feel that their function is critical merely "that our light comes from elsewhere." There are three points especially of religious belief, regarding which intuition (or instinct) and logic are at variance — efficacy of prayer — man's free will — and a future state of existence. If believed, they must be believed, the last without the countenance, the two former m spite of the hostility of logic. Hence the belief m them is most undoubting the nearer man and nations approach to the instructive condition. Savages never doubt them ; sufferers never doubt them ; men m the excitement of vehement action never doubt them. It is the quiet, even tenor of comfortable and refined existence — it is the fireside, the library, the arm chair that doubt, that question, that speak of darkness, that ask for proof — Greg's Creed of Chris,ten4om,