Pagina 652 di 1391

The hope of a future for the human race at first sight seems to

be the more disinterested, the hope of individual existence the

more egotistical, of the two motives. But when men have learned

to resolve their hope of a future either for themselves or for

the world into the will of God-'not my will but Thine,' the

difference between them falls away; and they may be allowed to

make either of them the basis of their lives, according to their

own individual character or temperament. There is as much faith

in the willingness to work for an unseen future in this world as

in another. Neither is it inconceivable that some rare nature may

feel his duty to another generation, or to another century,

almost as strongly as to his own, or that living always in the

presence of God, he may realize another world as vividly as he

does this.