[TO THE EDITOR or THE " SPEOTATOR.")
SIR,—Perhaps some of your readers will listen with interest to what might seem the echo coming from the far past of a touching passage in Mr. Greg's last letter, especially as it belongs to writings of one who is, on this ground, less known than he deserves to be. "Do you consider," asks one of the speakers in Plutarch's dialogue on the lateness of divine punishment, "that the immortality of the soul is implied in the belief in Provid- ence?" "If not." replied the other, "you make God a pur- suer of trifles. If He makes so much of creatures in whom there is nothing permanent, He is like those women who make gardens in shells." ("De His qui sero a Numine Puniantur," c. 17.) The state of mind which Plutarch supposes himself to be addressing—of one who concedes a divine providence and requires a proof of human immortality, perhaps not very uncommon eighteen hundred years ago—is now almost inconceivable, and it would be of course absurd to bring forward his argument as of any value to one who is looking for arguments. But there are many who will feel his quaint comparison to express with won- derful accuracy the facts of life, if hope, and desire, and aspira- tion are germs planted in this earthly life, and allowed no place to expand beyond the limit of its threescore years and ten.—
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