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Chapter XLV: Appendix: VIII

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'It is an awful hour--let him who has passed through it say how awful--when life has lost its meaning and seems shrivelled into a span--when the grave appears to be the end of all, human goodness nothing but a name, and the sky above this universe a dead expanse, black with the void from which God himself has disappeared. In that fearful loneliness of spirit ... I know but one way in which a man may come forth from his agony scathless: it is by holding fast to those things which are certain still--the grand, simple landmarks of morality.

'In the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. If there be no God and no future state yet even then it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than false, better to be brave than to be a coward. Blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the man who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul, has dared to hold fast to these venerable landmarks. Thrice blessed is he who, when all is drear and cheerless within and without, when his teachers terrify him and his friends shrink from him, has obstinately clung to moral good. Thrice blessed, because his night shall pass into clear bright day.'--F. W. ROBERTSON, _Lectures, Addresses, etc._, p. 49.

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APPENDIX IX

'Let me say at once that if after the elimination of all untruths from Christianity, we could build a belief in God and Immortality on the residue, we should then have a far more powerful incentive to right conduct than anything that I am about to urge.'--PHILIP VIVIAN, _Churches and Modern Thought_, p. 323.

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Modern Substitutes for ChristianityChapter XLV: Appendix: VIII

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