Remember the teaching of
scripture and science, that the upward path was never intended to
be easy. The scriptural passages to this effect you can find all
through the gospels and epistles, and I need not quote them to you.
I will, however, tell you honestly that many are of the opinion that
these passages are now obsolete, being applicable only to the first
centuries, or to especially critical times in the history of
the church. I cannot share that view, but, lest I seem too
old-fashioned, will merely quote the ringing words of our own Dr.
Hitchcock, that "no man ever enters heaven save on his shield." And
allow me to quote in the same connection the testimony of that
prince of scientists, Professor Huxley, in his lecture on "Evolution
and Ethics:"
"If we may permit ourselves a larger hope of abatement of the
essential evil of the world than was possible to those who, in the
infancy of exact knowledge, faced the problem of existence more than
a score of centuries ago, I deem it an essential condition of the
realization of that hope that we should cast aside the notion that
the escape from pain and sorrow is the proper object of life.
"We have long since emerged from the heroic childhood of our race,
when good and evil could be met with the same 'frolic welcome;' the
attempts to escape from evil, whether Indian or Greek, have ended in
flight from the battle-field; it remains to us to throw aside the
youthful over-confidence and the no less youthful discouragement of
nonage.
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