Let me read you just a few lines of challenge to those that would raise
a question as to the reality of this belief:
What is this mystic, wondrous hope in me, That, when no star from out
the darkness bore Gives promise of the coming of the morn, When all
life seems a pathless mystery Through which tear-blinded eyes no way
can see; When illness comes, and life grows most forlorn, Still dares
to laugh the last dread threat to scorn, And proudly cries, Death is
not, shall not be? I wonder at myself! Tell me, O Death, If that thou
rul'st the earth, if "dust to dust" Shall be the end of love and hope
and strife, From what rare land is blown this living breath That shapes
itself to whispers of strong trust, And tells the lie, if 'tis a lie,
of life? Where did this wondrous dream come from? How does it grow as
the world grows?
It must be a whisper of this eternal Being to our hearts; and so, in
spite of all the advance of knowledge, all the criticism, it remains
untouched, brightening and growing. And so there is reason, as we gaze
out on the future, why we should look with contempt, if you will, upon
the conditions that trouble us in this life, the burdens, the sorrows,
the illnesses, when all that life means at its highest is that out of
the conditions, whatever they are, I should shape a manhood, cultivate
a soul, make myself worth living, fitting myself for that which gleams
through the mist a promise, if you will, of something there beyond.
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