'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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