Answer. If there is no life beyond this, and so believing I come to the bedside of the dying—of one whose life has been a failure—a "life not worth living," I could at least say to such an one, "Your failure ends with your death. Beyond the tomb there is nothing for you—neither pain nor misery, neither grief nor joy." But if I were a good orthodox Christen, then I would have to say to this man, "Your life has been a failure; you have not been a Christian, and the failure will be extended eternally; you have not only been a failure for a time, but you will be a failure forever."
Admitting that there is another world, and that the man's life had been a failure in this, then I should say to him, "If you live again, you will have the eternal opportunity to reform. There will be no time, no date, no matter how many millions and billions of ages may have passed away, at which you will not have the opportunity of doing right."
Under no circumstances could I consistently say to this man: "Although your life has been a failure; although you have made hundreds and thousands of others suffer; although you have deceived and betrayed the woman who loved you; although you have murdered your benefactor; still, if you will now repent and believe a something that is unreasonable or reasonable to your mind, you will, at the moment of death, be transferred to a world of eternal joy." This I could not say. I would tell him, "If you die a bad man here, you will commence the life to come with the same character you leave this. Character cannot be made by another for you. You must be the architect of your own." There is to me unspeakably more comfort in the idea that every failure ends here, than that it is to be perpetuated forever.
How can a Christian comfort the mother of a girl who has died without believing in Christ? What doctrine is there in Christianity to wipe away her tears? What words of comfort can you offer to the mother whose brave boy fell in defence of his country, she knowing and you knowing, that the boy was not a Christian, that he did not believe in the Bible, and had no faith in the blood of the atonement? What words of comfort have you for such fathers and for such mothers?
To me, there is no doctrine so infinitely absurd as the idea that this life is a probationary state—that the few moments spent here decide the fate of a human soul forever. Nothing can be conceived more merciless, more unjust. I am doing all I can to destroy that doctrine. I want, if possible, to get the shadow of hell from the human heart.
Why has any life been a failure here? If God is a being of infinite wisdom and kindness, why does he make failures? What excuse has infinite wisdom for peopling the world with savages? Why should one feel grateful to God for having made him with a poor, weak and diseased brain; for having allowed him to be the heir of consumption, of scrofula, or of insanity? Why should one thank God, who lived and died a slave?
After all, is it not of more importance to speak the absolute truth? Is it not manlier to tell the fact than to endeavor to convey comfort through falsehood? People must reap not only what they sow, but what others have sown. The people of the whole world are united in spite of themselves.
Next to telling a man, whose life has been a failure, that he is to enjoy an immortality of delight—next to that, is to assure him that a place of eternal punishment does not exist.
After all, there are but few lives worth living in any great and splendid sense. Nature seems filled with failure, and she has made no exception in favor of man. To the greatest, to the most successful, there comes a time when the fevered lips of life long for the cool, delicious kiss of death—when, tired of the dust and glare of day, they hear with joy the rustling garments of the night.
Archibald Armstrong and Jonathan Newgate were fast friends. Their views in regard to the question of a future life, and the existence of a God, were in perfect accord. They said: