The Gospel of the Hereafter

This tenth American (and sixteenth British) edition has been carefully revised and where necessary rewritten by the author. We call special attention to an interesting note on page 108.

This year a Norwegian edition has been published, translated by Judge Hambro of the Supreme Court of Norway assisted by the Bishops of Christiania and Trondheim. Also request has been received for permission to translate the book for readers in Holland. But more interesting is a letter from a Brahmin gentleman in India asking permission to produce at his own cost an edition for his people and dedicated on the front page, "TO MY SON, SEREM ALI, WHO IS NOW IN THE NEAR HEREAFTER."

Foreword

The Lord is risen, but the people do not know it. There is no death, but the people do not believe it. Human life is the most exciting romantic adventure in the Universe, going on stage after stage till we are older than Methuselah and then on again through the infinite eternities--and yet men pass into the Unseen as stupidly as the caterpillar on the cabbage-leaf, without curiosity or joy or wonder or excitement at the boundless career ahead.

Instead of the thrill of coming adventure we have the dull grey monotony of aged lives drawing near the close, and the horror of this war is doubled and the torture of wife or mother as the beloved one crosses the barrier.

What is the matter with us, Christian people? Do we not know? Or have we lost our beliefs? or has imagination grown dulled by too frequent repetition of God's good news?

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It was so different in early days when the world was younger, when Christ's revelation was fresh. Look at St. John, four-score years and ten, like an eager boy looking into the Great Adventure: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and IT DOTH NOT YET APPEAR WHAT WE SHALL BE."[1]

What we shall be! What we shall be! Is not that the chief delight of being young? Guessing and hoping and wondering what we shall be.

The dreariest thing in life is dulness--monotony. The brightest thing in life is outlook--vision. And God has given us that. Like St. John we too can stand on the rim of the world and look out over the wall.

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Life is full of latent possibilities--of outlook, of romance, of exciting futures. God has made it so, if we would only see it. God's world of nature has its continuous progress, its ever new and fascinating stages. God's caterpillars in their next stage are going to be soaring butterflies--God's acorns are to become mighty oaks--God's dry little seeds in the granary to-day will in autumn be alive in the waving harvests. God's world of nature is full of romantic possibilities.

And God's world of men is infinitely more so, and one of life's delights is to know it and look forward to it guessing what we shall be. Outlook. Vision. That is what gives zest to life. That is what we need to make life bright and beautiful.

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I see a group of small boys sitting at their play, and their eyes are bright looking into the future. They are going to be soldiers, and sailors, and circus riders, and travelers, and all sorts of things. Because they are boys with the enthusiasms of boyhood, they may be anything. All the possibilities of boyhood belong to them. It doth not yet appear what they shall be, but it is delightful to look forward and speculate about it.

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