free to follow their own inclinations; do not care to know the laws, because they do not wish to obey them. On the other hand, there are others, a great multitude, who tremble in view of this taking away of the foundations of things, as they have been accustomed to regard them, thinking that the world is to be deluged with evil because the old-time landmarks and barriers are broken down. These men tremble, and they are disposed, so far as these old beliefs can in any way bolster up human conduct and make it stronger and firmer, even though they have come to believe them untrue, to do all they can to hold them up for the sake of those that are still influenced by them; that is, they are in a contradictory attitude,― contradictory, if indeed this be a universe of truth and right,— thinking it is wise and safe and best to lead a man on to do right by the power of a delusion and a falsehood; that though there be no church that is infallible, though there be no Bible that is infallible, still they say it is better that men should believe it, that thus they may be kept from going into ways that are wrong. But believing as I do with my whole soul that the ultimate reasons why we ought to do this thing or that thing are not in book or in church or in human authority, but that they are grounded in the eternal and unchangeable nature of things, I believe that the highest welfare of men will be subserved when we cease to trust in delusions and dare to look God's great truths fairly and simply in the face. My purpose, then, in this course of lectures, or sermons, will be to enter upon the search after what are the ultimate fundamental principles of conduct, of right and wrong, and how they ought to be applied in our human lives. After so much of preface, then, let us come to the topic of the morning. IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? IS THIS a good world? Is life worth living? At first sight, perhaps, the question may arise in your mind as to what this has to do with a course of sermons on conduct, on right and wrong. It has everything to do it lies as the foundation stone of all. For if there be no order, no law, no righteousness, no truth at the heart of things, if the essential nature of the universe in all its long unfolding be not righteous, if human nature be not essentially righteous, then the world is evil, and the very nature of virtues and vices is simply reversed. If it is a bad world, if it is evil in its nature and outcome, then those things that are conducive to the life, the comfort, and the welfare of man, as we say, become the cardinal vices of the world; and those things that we have been accustomed to call cardinal virtues are evil and injurious. If this is a bad world and no life is worth living, then the sooner we have done with it the better; and the highest virtue attainable for us, on this theory, would be suicide and murder; and the man who should sacrifice himself to save the life of another would be committing a piece of folly, not only, but be guilty of a crime. Does it seem strange to you that any one should ever ask the question whether life is worth living? And yet it would seem to be the opinion of the author of this Psalm that I read as our lesson this morning. He says we bring our years to an end as a tale that is told; and if we live to be threescore and ten years old, or even fourscore, yet it is all labor and sorrow,- soon passes over and we are gone. And, as a matter of fact, there are thousands not only, there are millions, of people in this world to-day the very fundamental article of whose religious creed is that life is a curse, that the world is evil, that life is not worth living. The great body of Hindus and Buddhists, to-day outnumbering by thousands and thousands the entire body of Christendom, hold it and teach it as a fundamental article of their belief, that the highest blessedness to which they can attain is unconsciousness,-practical non-existence. To escape the weary burden of the days and the years, and enter into the eternal sleep of Brahm,- this is the highest dream of their happiness, the ultimate outcome of all their religious activity. It is no wonder that thousands of human souls, crushed down under the burdens of life, struggling for a bare existence, should come to conceive that life is a curse, a gift not worth having. Though they may struggle on for the sake of warding off a heavier lot, even, from those that are dear to them, yet there are thousands that to-day no doubt lie down at last with a grand sense of relief, happy that they can go to sleep, and that no morning sun is going to awaken them again to pick up their burden that has chafed the shoulder and crushed the heart so long. But, curiously enough, the other class of persons that we find taking this ground are precisely the opposite extreme of the social scale. The men that are arguing it to-day in the English reviews and in the American magazines,- who are they? They are not the toilers and the strugglers of the world. Now and then they may belong to the literary class whose sympathies are excited by the toilers and the strugglers, and who, while they may believe that life is a good thing for themselves, seriously question whether it is a good thing for the poor. and the weary and the worn. But the great body of them are the upper classes, the dilettanti, the aristocrats, the men who live for nothing but to find a new sensation; the men whose only search is after some new stimulus to tickle and thrill their nerves; the men who wake up in the morning asking how they shall kill the time for another day; with no burden, no cares, no labor, no end or object in life excepting to be amused. These are the men and no wonder - who become weary of life, and wonder whether it is worth living. If men like these should ask me the question as to whether life were worth living, I should say, "If you refer to lives such as these you are leading, then most certainly not." But the great middle class of the world, though they have ever so heavy burdens to bear, though they have their hours of weeping and weariness and loss, yet, having something to live for, something to care for, these men take life as a precious boon, and are ready to live faithfully, to the best of their ability, and according to their ideas. That which makes men weary of life is not life itself: it is some condition attached to life, it is some burden they have to carry, it is some obstacle in the way they have to climb, it is some cloud above their heads that shuts out the sunlight of their peace and their joy. It is something besides life that makes men ask this question; for never were truer words spoken than those put into musical phrase by the Laureate of England: ""Tis life whereof our nerves are scant; But these men that are arguing the question would say, We grant that; but it is just these very conditions of life that seem so inseparable from it that make us question whether it be not a burden that we would not care to bear. Let us, then, come to look the matter in the face, and see what kind of a universe this really is; see which way the balances will turn when we attempt impartially to weigh the good and the evil. And the first thing that strikes us as we look out over the world with our modern eyes is that, whatever else is true, this universe is a system of order, governed by law. And order, if you think of it, is the very first principle of existence, the very first principle of right, the very first principle the condition of all happiness. And it means more than at first may appear to you. By it we are able to assert that the universe is a cosmos; not chaotic, not disordered, a universe of law. The heavens above tell it in their starry speech, and the gathering of the frost on our windowpanes, arranging itself in its beautiful crystalline orders, utters the same grand truth concerning the microscopic world. Everywhere order, through telescope or microscope or spectroscope, through whatever instrumentality, by whatever means, we look out on the universe, when we come to understand and see, we find that this is a system of magnificent order. Order, then, whatever there may be of disorder, is in the majority, and controls this scheme of things. Take one step further. The conditions of life exist in this universe of ours. And do you know how much that means? It means that there are more sensations of happiness in the universe than there are sensations of pain. For sensation is the very first quality and principle of life; and alwaysthose that are authorities in these matters tell us the sensation of pain is the indication of a broken law, of a disregarded condition of life. If, then, there were more pain in the universe than pleasure, life itself would be extinguished; for those customs and practices and functions of the race, and of all races, that conduce towards the production and development and increase of the fulness of life, these are always pleasurable sensations and emotions; and every pain is a step towards death. Once more. The simple fact that society exists proves that there is more good in the world than there is evil. We are sometimes apt to think otherwise We talk about how corrupt society is growing. The author of one of the Psalms exclaimed in his haste, "All men are liars." And modern men, echoing that idea, have been accustomed to say, "Every man has his price"; and they extend it, in the foulness and corruption of their thought, to every woman, too. They talk about society's degenerating, about the world being base all through,- totally depraved. And yet, I say, the simple fact that there is any society in existence at all is an outright, simple, flat denial of these sweeping |