care was indeed primarily for the person. His
emphasis was put upon the worth of the individual. And it is not too
much to say that the uniqueness of Jesus' teaching lay in the discovery
of the value of the soul. There was in His ministry a new appreciation
of the possibilities of neglected lives, and a hitherto unknown yearning
to share their confidence. It would be a mistake, however, to represent
Christ's regard for the individual as excluding all consideration of
social relations. The kingdom of God, as we shall see, had a social and
corporate meaning for our Lord. And if the qualifications for its
entrance were personal, its duties were social. The universalism of
Jesus' teaching implied that the soul had a value not for itself alone,
but also for others. The assertion, therefore, that the individual has a
value cannot mean that he has a value in isolation. {128} Rather his
value can only be realised in the life of the community to which he truly
belongs. The effort to help others is the truest way to reveal the
hidden worth of one's own life; and he who withholds his sympathy from
the needy has proved himself unworthy of the kingdom.

While the writers of the New Testament vary in their mode of presenting
the ultimate goal of man, they are at one in regarding it as an exalted
form of _life_. What they all seek to commend is a condition of being
involving a gradual assimilation to, and communion with, God. The
distinctive gift of the Gospel is the gift of life. 'I am the Life,'
says Christ. And the apostle's confession is in harmony with his
Master's claim--'For me to live is Christ.' Salvation is nothing else
than the restoration, preservation, and exaltation of life.

Corresponding, therefore, to the three great conceptions of Life in the
New Testament, and especially in the teaching of Jesus--'Eternal Life,'
'the kingdom of God,' and the perfection of the divine Fatherhood,
'Perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect'--there are three aspects,
individual, social, and divine, in which we may view the Christian ideal.

I

Self-realisation is not, indeed, a scriptural word. But rightly
understood it is a true element in the conception of life, and may, we
think, be legitimately drawn from the ethical teaching of the New
Testament.[1] Though the free full development of the individual
personality as we conceive it in modern times does not receive explicit
statement,[2] still one cannot doubt,