If for him there is
not a future, why were the instincts of his nature given? Why the
power to learn so much? To trace in the planetary system divine
wisdom, and divine power; to see and know the same in the mite which
floats in the sunbeam? If this is all he is ever to know, does this
complete a destiny for use? if so, for what? Can it be, simply to
propagate his species, and perish? and was all this grand creation of
the earth, and all things therein, made to subserve him for so mean a
purpose? It cannot be. Life is a probation, death the key which
unlocks the portal through which we pass to the perfection of the
design of God.
In these views and opinions Dr. Clapp lived and died. When worn out
with labor and the ravages of time, he sought to renovate his
exhausted energies, by removing to a higher latitude, and selected
Louisville, Kentucky, for his future home. He had seen most of his
early friends pass into eternity, in the fruition of time, and felt
and knew it was only a day that his departure for eternity was
delayed; yet how calmly and contentedly he awaited the mandate which
should bid him home!
His belief in the universal destiny of man made him universally
tolerant.
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