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Nature's God Himself would be false, for God has promised to render to every man according to his works; to reward the virtuous and to punish the wicked. But what do I see? I look around me and I see a world of saints and sinners — the saints living in poverty and wretchedness all their lives, the sinners affluent and happy. Oh, surely virtue does not always get its reward nor vice its punishment in this world; and so God's words would be false and His justice a mere mockery, were there no hereafter of happiness for the good and of misery for the wicked. If my soul is to die with my body, religion is a humbug, laws do not bind; I can plunder and outrage and kill and give free play to all the worst inclinations of my nature; for if there is no hereafter why not enjoy this life to the full? Why fear man? Why fear God? Believers have ever held the doctrine of a hereafter, and unbelievers, while denying it with the lips, have confessed it in their lives and in their inmost souls. Even the poor untutored savage laid him down to die with a prayer on his lips, and a firm hope in his heart of waking in the happy hunting-grounds. Yes, my soul, I feel that I possess thee, and that thou canst never die; that thou art not made of perishable matter, like my body, but art a pure spirit; that of thine own nature thou art immortal, and that God will never annihilate thee; that, as He has promised, He will render to thee in the last day according to thy deeds; reward thee, if good, with eternal happiness, and condemn thee, if wicked, to the everlasting pains of hell.