A short time before his death Washington Gladden was a guest in my home. As he sat in an easy chair after dinner speaking of other days, and especially as he spoke of his sainted wife, I noticed how old he had grown. Though his body had about run its course, yet the light of his soul had not been dimmed. In my heart I said, "What a dear old man you are, Dr. Gladden. You are nearly all soul!" He had kept the faith. And it had made a difference; for him, for me, and for all the world. While the old man sat there and conversed with the family, the light of his soul sent a shining ray "Far down the future's broadening way." CHAPTER VIII HOW SHALL WE CONCEIVE OF THE FUTURE LIFE? 1. Its relation to the present constitution of things Granting that there is a future existence, are we not wholly in the dark as to what it is like? Is it possible to form any conception of heaven that is not offensive to the intelligent mind? Professor Leuba says: "As soon as, no longer satisfied with a general assurance of unruffled peace and unalloyed enjoyment, we demand specifications, we find ourselves in the presence of ideas and pictures, either absurd or repulsive, or void of real attractiveness. The best gifted religious seers succeed in this descriptive task no better than the cleverest mediums." Have we, then, no facts on which to build a rational conception of the future state? I believe that a satisfying view is a possible achievement, because we have some very important and fundamental facts from which to construct a picture. The minor details, of course, are unknown to us, but the main outline, which principally matters, may be very clearly conceived. As we have previously shown, the future does not have to do with a new God and a new universe and a new soul; but with the present God, the present universe, and the present soul to-morrow. The future is not some new thing; it is the old realities a little later, and a little more fully developed. That God will remain a stable factor in the equation, we may rest assured. And we can read nature well enough in this scientific age to understand that it is no sudden and fickle movement void of law and order. Neither are we entirely ignorant of our own rational souls that organize themselves into civilized communities by combining and giving shape to the forces of nature in which we live. We have plainly seen that neither God, nature, nor man has any worth or significance when separated from each other. In the future life, therefore, there is but one factor that is different from those found in the present constitution of things, and that is the loss of the present human body. And even this difference between the present and the future will be largely rectified, according to the Scriptures, by our receiving new bodies. For too long we have foolishly tried to show that the soul could live without a body; and this in the face of the Scriptural teaching, that God will give us new bodies.