Gods, yet the gift was of man, not of God. On what ground, then, should it be supposed that while the giver remains the same, the gift should be lessened in value because the recipient is altered?
But, leaving art, what shall we say to Miss Cobbe's allegation that duty will "grow grey and cold" without God and immortality? Yes, for those with whom duty is a matter of selfish calculation, and who are virtuous only because they look for a "golden crown" in payment on the other side the grave. Those of us who find joy in right-doing, who work because work is useful to our fellows, who live well because in such living we pay our contribution to the world's wealth, leaving earth richer than we found it—we need no paltry payment after death for our life's labor, for in that labor is its own "exceeding great reward".
And love "grey and cold" when God has disappeared! None but the unloving can echo Miss Cobbe's words. Love of friend for friend, of parent for child, of man for woman, how should such loves fade because a supernatural love has vanished? Man lives, though Gods die. Those who have been so unfortunate as never to have felt strong human love may fancy that their thin ghost of love for the unseen is the highest emotion that man can feel. But those who know what love is smile at, though they also pitifully sigh over, the twilight life which takes the moonlight of divine for the sunlight of human love.
But what of death? Miss Cobbe may ask. Death in old age, when life is fully lived, should lose much of the sadness it wears when it cuts short the thread of happy days. And annihilation is surely better than the life in torture which religions have offered to the world. Better the death of the beloved than the thought of agony after death. I am aware that Miss Cobbe believes in immortality but not in hell; that she regards all as "doomed to be saved". We are not all dowered with Miss Cobbe's facility for believing in pleasant things because we desire them. For many of us evidence must precede belief. I would gladly believe in a happy immortality for all, as I would gladly believe that all misery and crime and poverty will disappear in 1885—if I could. But I am unable to believe an improbable proposition unless convincing evidence is brought in support of it. Immortality is most improbable; no evi-
