out of those relations, the better it will be for all who are concerned in this interesting subject. The next item in that eloquent effusion is that man is "like the leaf," the mere "sport of destiny," returning in his "autumn" "to the elements of nature from which he sprang: dust to dust." This orator asks the questions, "Whence came we?" "Whither are we tending?" "Who can tell?" To them he gives two answers. First, he says, "Some profess to know, but they know not." "The past is a mere sealed book." "The future is a blank." "Of the future, the hereafter, we are as ignorant as we are of the infinite conditions through which we have passed during the eternity which has preceded our brief present existences. If we could know the history of our past, we might get a glimpse of our future," "The past is a mere sealed book." Conclusion, "The future is a mere sealed book." The man is lost in the unbeliever's "narrow vale lying between two cold, bleak, barren eternities," viz: life. Lost (?) in the narrow vale. Yes! He knows nothing about his origin. He knows nothing about his destiny. So he says, and we have no right to contradict him. He is lost! But here he is again, listen! Speaking of the autumn leaves, he says, "LIKE US, they disappear and are merged into the ocean of matter from which they are evolved, ready to be RE-COMBINED into new forms of beauty." (Capitals mine.) Once more he says, "LIKE THAT LEAF which was the hope of spring, the pride and glory of summer, we are rudely torn away, the sport of destiny, to return to the elements of nature from which we sprung: dust to dust." How he contradicts himself! But we must make all due allowances. He is in the presence of death. He says, "The past is beyond recall; the future is veiled in obscurity and in doubt; the present alone is ours." Here confusion is confounded; but let us ever remember that this was a funeral occasion, and the friends of the deceased were present, and this man Veveu was there, for the purpose, ostensibly, of giving a small amount of consolation to bereaved and broken hearts. Oh, how barren, how cold, how gloomy and God-dishonoring the consolation given! Those empty vessels of ours, hearts "endowed with inexhaustible hope," must turn away from the grave (?) _empty still_. No, not necessarily. God has provided a fountain. Go to it and fill your vessels. Let us not be too severe upon the man. There he stands amid bleeding hearts, and the open tomb just before him. Show pity, Lord! The man says, "No message ever reached man from beyond the grave." How very singular it is that many men repudiating God make a god of themselves. What kind of a being must I be to know that "no message ever reached man from beyond the grave?" How much must I know? Away back yonder in the past, in that "mere sealed book," is a grand and glorious message from beyond the grave. But to our friend it is a "sealed book." What becomes of evolution? What becomes of natural selection?