Surely this is not an encouraging prospect. A future which offers happiness to a small minority cannot be looked forward to with enthusiasm. Neither is the thought of a few saved and the many damned a consolation. One of the oft-repeated claims is that the belief in God and immortality is such a happiness that he must be an enemy of his race who would deprive people of it. Even Rationalists are said to envy the believer his peace of mind. But the truth is the very opposite of this. There is abundant testimony to prove that of all people the real and consistent believer is the most unhappy being in the world. The proverbial unhappiness of the Rationalist, like the proverbial death-bed horrors of a Thomas Paine and a Voltaire, is a pure fabrication. While there is absolutely nothing in Rationalism to make anybody miserable, since it does away with fear, which is the only thing to fear, Orthodoxy, on the other hand, starts by not only calling this a vale of tears, but proceeds forthwith to make it so. If we were to place the greatest known Christian saints on the stand to interrogate them on this subject, they would one and all confirm our statement. Listen, for instance, to the confession of Thomas a Kempis: "Lord, I am not worthy of thy consolation.... Thou dealest justly with me when thou leavest me poor and desolate, for if I could shed tears as the sea, yet should I not be worthy of thy consolation. I am worthy only to be scourged and punished."[A] These are not the words of a buoyant and happy soul. And listen to the lamentation of John Bunyan: "Sometimes I could for whole days together feel my very body as well as my mind to shake and totter under the sense of this dreadful judgment of God.... I felt also such a clogging and heat in my stomach by reason of this terror that I thought my breast-bone would split asunder. Oh, how gladly would I have been anything but a man."[B] I could quote long chapters from the biographies of the saints to show the wretchedness, the despair and the agony of the believer, shuddering upon the brink of eternity--uncertain whether heaven or hell awaits to receive him. I could give you a similar chapter from my own experience. When I was much younger, I had implicit faith in the bible and the unseen world. What was the effect of this belief upon me? Did it make me happy? I can never forget the moments of agony I spent on my knees, at the "throne of grace." My pillow was often wet with weeping over sins I had never committed, and fearing a depravity I could never be guilty of. Christianity in its virile form took hold of my young heart as the roots of a tree take hold of the earth in which they grow. I was as sensitive and responsive to its influence as fire is to the wind that fans it into flame. "Am I saved? How can I be sure that God has forgiven me? Where would I open my eyes if I should die tonight? Oh, God! what if I should after all be one of the reprobates--damned