Passing the North Pole.
By C. W. Stone
A FALSE theory, if sustained by an illustration, is always bound to lean upon a faulty one. Deacon Smith said to me that he once heard a minister say to an audience, that it did not matter so very much what people believed; that all people would finally reach Heaven, though by far different routes. This was at North Hyde Park. There were present some people from Hyde Park, a village six miles south. To illustrate his doctrine he said, You that live at Hyde Park would just as certainly reach home by traveling in an opposite direction, though you would be longer about it, and would nearly circumnavigate the globe. Said the deacon, I thought of the well-provided fleets of Dr. Kane and others, and of the difficulties they experienced in searching for an open polar sea, and of their failure to penetrate nearer than within about five hundred miles of the north pole; and I thought that these Hyde-Parkers would certainly be entitled to my pity if they should set out northward expecting to reach home by passing directly through, not only the north pole, but the south pole also. It will be found by every one who attempts to reach Heaven by any other than the narrow path of truth that impassable icebergs lie in the way. C. W. STONE.