p. 5 | Note and Comment

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 2, 1902

Note and Comment

IN a recent volume entitled “Facts and Comments,” by Herbert Spencer, who is acknowledged to be the highest living authority on agnosticism and evolution, occurs the following paragraph, among the last words of what the author says will be the last volume from his pen:—

It seems a strange and repugnant conclusion that with the cessation of consciousness at death there ceases to be any knowledge of having existed. . . . Of late years the consciousness that without origin or cause infinite space has ever existed, and must ever exist, produces in me a feeling from which I shrink.

Such testimony, from such a source, is worth considering, in contrast with the assurances of Christianity respecting the origin of all things and a future state of existence. Contrast the position of Mr. Spencer, at the conclusion of his active life, with that of the apostle Paul at the close of his life. See 2 Tim. 4: 6-8. To which of these positions is one led by everlasting truth?