Furthermore, the prospect of a reformation in the next world is more
improbable than a reformation here. In this world the life started
with innocence of infancy. In the case supposed the other life will
open with all the accumulated bad habits of many years upon him.
Surely, it is easier to build a strong ship out of new timber than out
of an old hulk that has been ground up in the breakers. If with
innocence to start with in this life a man does not become godly, what
prospect is there that in the next world, starting with sin, there
would be a seraph evoluted? Surely the sculptor has more prospect of
making a fine statue out of a block of pure white Parian marble than
out of an old black rock seamed and cracked with the storms of a half
century. Surely upon a clean, white sheet of paper it is easier to
write a deed or a will than upon a sheet of paper all scribbled and
blotted and torn from top to bottom. Yet men seem to think that,
though the life that began here comparatively perfect turned out
badly, the next life will succeed, though it starts with a dead
failure.

"But," says some one, "I think we ought to have a chance in the next
life, because this life is so short it allows only small opportunity.
We hardly have time to turn around between cradle and tomb, the wood
of the one almost touching the marble of the other." But do you know
what made the ancient deluge a necessity? It was the longevity of the
antediluvians. They were worse in the second century of their
life-time than in the first hundred years, and still worse in the
third century, and still worse all the way on to seven, eight, and
nine hundred years, and the earth had to be washed, and scrubbed, and
soaked, and anchored, clear out of sight for more than a month before
it could be made fit for decent people to live in. Longevity never