rld was barren, peaked, and pining:
to-day 't is inconceivably populous; creation swarms and meliorates."

The speculative idea that immortality is an achievement rather than a
gift is not new, but whenever it is formulated, as in a recent sermon by
Rev. Doctor Parkhurst, it startles many people and arouses antagonism,
so far as it is not truly understood. Yet it has its deepest aspects of
spiritual truth, and it is the idea constantly, persistently, and most
impressively taught by Saint Paul throughout the entire gospels. We are
constantly besought to _lay hold_ on the eternal life; to press forward
toward immortal things; to be renewed in the spirit; to "put on the new
man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness; to
follow Him, who is the Life, the Truth, the Way." The entire teaching of
the gospels is one forcible system of active and unfaltering endeavor in
the growing achievement of spirituality, which determines Immortality.
It is the exact accountant--measure for measure. So much spirituality,
so much immortality. Nor does this assertion partake in the slightest
degree of the nature of a metaphysical problem, to be comprehended only
by the theologian and the philosopher. It is the most simple, clear, and
direct of propositions. We all accept Saint Paul's assertion that flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. So far as one lives only
in the processes of the physical life he is not living the life of those
spiritual energies which alone lay hold on immortality. There is a
certain degree of intelligent consciousness that is inseparable from
this physical life; an intelligence that buys and sells, and bargains
and calculates on the physical plane, and is sufficient to produce a
certain rational status of life. There are not wanting individuals who
never rise above this plane. They may, and often do, acquire possessions
and even power on the limited plane of the outward life; they may even
have some formal and ceremonial religious observances which they mistake
for Christianity, but which are the framework ready and able to inspire
them if filled with the spirit, but which, to them, remain empty and
dead. The man whose body, simply, occupies his church pew on Sunday, and
who on Monday proceeds to cheat his neighbor, is not, we will all agree,
the man who has really entered into the true privileges offered by the
Church. The sacrament of Sunday must become the consecration of Monday.