This request confers upon me a certain right to express my opinion on this weighty subject without fear and without reproach even from those who might be ready to take offence at one of the laity for meddling with pulpit questions. It shows also that this is not a dead issue in our community, as some of the younger generation seem to think. There are some, there may be many, who would like to hear what impressions one has received on the subject referred to, after a long life in which he has heard and read a great deal about the matter. There is a certain gravity in the position of one who is, in the order of nature very near the undiscovered country. A man who has passed his eighth decade feels as if he were already in the antechamber of the apartments which he may be called to occupy in the house of many mansions. His convictions regarding the future of our race are likely to be serious, and his expressions not lightly uttered. The question my correspondent suggests is a tremendous one. No other interest compares for one moment with that belonging to it. It is not only ourselves that it concerns, but all whom we love or ever have loved, all our human brotherhood, as well as our whole idea of the Being who made us and the relation in which He stands to his creatures. In attempting to answer my correspondent's question, I shall no doubt repeat many things I have said before in different forms, on different occasions. This is no more than every clergyman does habitually, and it would be hard if I could not have the same license which the professional preacher enjoys so fully.