Now, it may be quite true that Mr. ---- has this preference, yet this does not settle the case. We can fully understand how any man should shrink from the terrible possibility of future suffering. Orthodoxy has no more delight in it than has infidelity. But it is not a question of preference: it is a question of fact; and the point I submit for your reflection is this--whether Mr. ----, on his own ground, is authorized to affirm that there is no future state of suffering for any. He says we do not know whether there _is_ any future state. Very well. Then, certainly, we do not know what _kind_ of a future state there may be, if there is one. If Mr. ---- is not able to assure us that there is no future for us at all, he surely has not the ground to assure us of any kind of a future, good or bad. There may be a future of joy, there may be a future of suffering; there may be both. Mr. ---- is too good a lawyer to undertake to prove anything by mere negative evidence. He "leaves the dead with Nature, the mother of all," and "Nature," as to any sure utterance upon the future, is as silent as are the lips of the dead themselves. Mr. ---- does not believe in a personal God. _You_ are not sure whether there is one or not. There may be; there may be none. If there is, we cannot know it. Let us see what we gain on either supposition. Suppose there is a God, though I cannot know it or I cannot know him. Then, clearly, I cannot know what he is; I cannot know what he may do. It is quite possible that this unknown God may be a God who hates what we call sin, and who will punish it, and who will punish it just as long as it stands an offence in the moral universe, whether it be in this world or in the world to come. No agnosticism can deny this conclusion. The darkest as well as the most radiant scenes that Christian faith brings within our view _may_ be eternally true. I may be immortal, and it may be an immortality of joy or of sighing for me as I use this life and the truth that God has made known to me in this life.