in tomorrow; he beholds the summit of the hill, and says, "There I
shall stand victorious some future day." Today incomplete, tomorrow
complete; today imperfect, tomorrow perfect; today bound, tomorrow
emancipated; today humiliated, tomorrow crowned. Hence, the future is
man's refuge, hope and strength. And in a yet more profound sense does
the future exert a wonderful power over our lives, in that it holds for
us the inheritance undefiled and incorruptible, the patrimony of
eternity. And who can measure the influence of this belief over human
character? Blot it out, and what inspiration have we to struggle on?
If we are to perish as the beast of the field, wither like the grass,
and vanish like the transient cloud, man has no grand, sublime
impulsion in this life. But let him believe that he is the child of
God, that there is an immortal soul, not only in him, but an eternal
sphere awaiting him--let him believe that here he is but in the bud,
that these seventy years are but the seed time, and that infinite eons
lie before him for fruition and efflorescence, and you magnify his
spirit, enlarge his hope, and inspire him with a zeal to conquer and
achieve.

But now there is a popular philosophy that tells us that man can only
know two points of time: that point of time through which he has
gone--the past, and that point of time in which he is now living--the
present. He may know experience and he may grasp opportunity, but he
can know nothing of futurity. The future is a riddle, an unexplored
continent, a _terra incognita_ into which no human eyes have ever pried
or ever may pry, sealed as it is by the counsel of God against the
curious vision of His children. And to some extent I think we all must
admit that this popular notion holds true. There are those to whom the
future must be a blank, who peer into it and behold nothing there.