The Bible a Chart

We sail upon an ocean whose farther bounds are far beyond our sight. The Bible gives every soul a course to sail by.

Follow this course, it says, and you will reach harbor; follow any other, and you will come to shipwreck. But what that harbor is, and what possibilities of rescue at the last from shipwreck there may be, it tells not. The wise father neither promises nor threatens. He leaves His children to understand that obedience brings happiness; disobedience, suffering. God governs His children as a wise father, and to all our questionings — "What pay for doing right?" "What penalty for doing wrong?" — keeps a silence that is more eloquent than speech.

The Bible contains no clear revelation respecting the nature of either eternal life or eternal death. It discloses nothing to curiosity. We can gather from its intimations some probable conclusions; but every kind of dogmatism respecting the eternal future is unscriptural. — LYMAN ABBOTT.