In France they do not tell the man who is to be guillotined till a few moments before the fatal hour. He is sleeping on his couch. He is dreaming of pleasant fields, of running streams, of boyhood's days, of to-morrows that shall be better--a heavy hand is laid on his shoulder--he starts up in bed--the gray light of early morning is filtering in through the barred window of his cell--stern-faced men are standing before him--they say, "Your hour is come; follow us." It is terrific. But this is the case of every human being. No one can tell when the summons may come--or where. A man was sitting in his room at close of day. It had been (so he said) the best day of his life. He had said to his wife that he never loved her more than he did then (and they had been married many years), never did he feel more content that they had chosen to walk together through life than then. He was full of plans for himself and for her (saying with great earnestness that their last days should be their best days). She answered back that she was glad with a great gladness that it was so. She turned away for a moment to glance in another direction, still speaking to him. When she looked back he was gone--gone while the love words and the hope words were still on his lips--the finger of death had touched his heart--a voice had whispered in his ear, "Come." There was only a lifeless bit of clay where a moment before had been a body pulsing with life, with love, with hope. It is terrific--doomed--and not knowing how soon the bolt will strike. What sort of a God is this who laces your body with a network of laws, the breaking of the slightest of which--all unknown to you--may send you forth upon a path of diseased and tortured existence--in which the body from whence you cannot escape shall be to you as a chamber of horrors--a place of the thumbscrew, the rack and the fagot. What kind of a God is that who allows the aged to linger out in a miserable prolongation of wretched days, a burden to themselves, a burden to others, and takes away the widow's only son --her only support? Who is the God who creates one man with all the equipment for life, and another man with all the lack of it? What kind of a God is this who looks down out of the heaven of day and the heavens of night, and sees all the sorrow, the anguish, the pain, the unspeakable tragedies, and sends no wing of angel to cleave the pitiless sky, no voice out of the silence to console, no hand to help? What man is there of you, if he had the power, would not banish sickness, sorrow, pain and death? What man is there of you who, if he could, would not make every human being well and happy? What then? What is the conclusion of the matter concerning you? Simple enough--you have _the heart to do it, but not the power_. What is the conclusion concerning this God of nature? _He has the power--but does not manifest the heart_. What will you say of this God of nature in such a scheme?