"There is an important law of nature which should never be lost sight of, I mean that of our maturity for death. Death is not a cutting off of being, but a transition, a passing from one form of being to another. Both conditions, here and hereafter, so depend on each other, and are so inseparably connected, that the first moment there can only commence with the last moment here, when the perfect development of the being is completed. No human wisdom can calculate, no inward feeling can show, the moment of this maturity for death, or the impossibility of advancing farther; to attempt this would be the vain presumption of human pride. He only who is in a position to penetrate and understand our whole being can do this ; and it is the dictate alike of duty and of wisdom to commit the hour to Him, and never to oppose our impatient wishes to his will."