ctory" (p. 39). The passage has already been quoted in which
it is written that, at the end of the fight for God's Kingdom, "we are
altogether taken up into his being" (p. 68). In a discussion of "the
religion of atheists" we are told that unregenerate man is "acutely
aware of himself as an individual and unawakened to himself as a
species," wherefore he "finds death frustration." His mistake is in
not seeing that his own frustration "may be the success and triumph of
his kind" (p. 72). At the point where we are told that "the first
purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge," we are further
informed that "he will apprehend more fully as time goes on" the
purpose to which this knowledge is to be applied. But already it is
possible to define "the broad outlines" of his purpose. "It is the
conquest of death; first the overcoming of death in the individual _by
the incorporation of the motives of his life into an undying purpose_"
(p. 99), and then, as we saw before, the defeat of the threatened
extinction of life through the cooling of the planet. These, I think,
are the chief texts bearing directly on this particular matter; but
there is one other remark which must not be overlooked. "A convicted
criminal, frankly penitent," we are told, "... may still die well and
bravely on the gallows, to the glory of God. He may step straight from
that death into the immortal being of God."

To what, now, does all this amount? Is there any more substantial
solace in it than in the "Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible"
aspiration of mid-nineteenth-century positivism? Far be it from me to
speak contemptuously of that aspiration. It gives a new orientation
and consistency to thought and effort during life; and to the man who
feels that his little note will melt into the world-harmony that is to
be, that thought may impart a certain serenity under the shadow of the
end. It is certainly better to feel at night, "I have done a fair
day's work," than to lie down with the confession, "My day has been
wasted, and worse." No one wants, I suppose, to say with Peer Gynt:--

Thou beautiful earth, be not angry with me,
That I trampled thy grasses to no avail;
Thou beautiful sun, thou hast squandered away
Thy glory of light in an empty hut.
Beautiful sun and beautiful earth,
You were foolish to bear and give light to my mother.

But there is also another side to the question. The more surely you
believe that "through the ages