Page:The World Beyond.djvu/14

 It is sometimes useless to reason. If there is no affirmative principle to appeal to, all argument is in vain. If you plant a seed in the sand, it will not grow for lack of the proper nutriment; and if you insinuate a spiritual idea into an irretrievably skeptical mind, it will take no root for want of proper soil. An inharmonious mind does not believe in harmony; but a musical nature believes in melody, because every fibre thrills with its sweet concord. A selfish man does not believe in the possibility of disinterestedness, nor a profligate in virtue. To them these heavenly graces appear as impossibilities. But so far as one is unselfish, he knows its possibility; and so far as he is virtuous, he believes in the reality of virtue.

Why argue these first principles of religion. They are matters of consciousness, not of controversy. The true follower of the Lord, no matter how far he may fall short of the full realization of his faith, knows what he knows by the necessities of his nature. He realizes revelation as the mathematician realizes the wonderful certainty and power of numbers, as the musician feels the force of melody, as the artist sees the beauty of art.

So of the immortality of the soul. It is a matter of inspiration, not of argument. It comes by a realization of one's nature, not by external proofs. True, proofs of the future life abound; proofs of the soul's continued existence beyond this life, are plentiful on every hand. Yet there are multitudes who, without these, know of their own immortality, because they feel it as a need of their nature. They