xpression
of the fundamental unity. In the day when the Son Himself shall "be
subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in
all,"[247] this film will be transcended, but for us it remains the
highest division of the spiritual body, in which we ascend to the
Father, and are united with Him.

Christianity has always recognised the existence of three worlds, or
regions, through which a man passes; first, the physical world;
secondly, an intermediate state into which he passes at death; thirdly,
the heavenly world. These three worlds are universally believed in by
educated Christians; only the uninstructed imagine that a man passes
from his death-bed into the final state of beatitude. But there is some
difference of opinion as to the nature of the intermediate world. The
Roman Catholic names it Purgatory, and believes that every soul passes
into it, save that of the Saint, the man who has reached perfection, or
that of a man who has died in "mortal sin." The great mass of humanity
pass into a purifying region, wherein a man remains for a period varying
in length according to the sins he has committed, only passing out of it
into the heavenly world when he has become pure. The various communities
that are called Protestant vary in their teachings as to details, and
mostly repudiate the idea of _post mortem_ purification; but they agree
broadly that there is an intermediate state, sometimes spoken of as
"Paradise," or as a "waiting period." The heavenly world is almost
universally, in modern Christendom, regarded as a final state, with no
very definite or general idea as to its nature, or as to the progress or
stationary condition of those attaining to it. In early Christianity
this heaven was considered to be, as it really is, a stage in the
progress of the soul, re-incarnation in one form or another, the
pre-existence of the soul, being then very generally taught. The result
was, of course, that the heavenly state was a temporary condition,
though often a very prolonged one, lasting for "an age"--as stated in
the Greek of the New Testament, the age being ended by the return of the
man for the next stage of his continuing life and progress--and not
"everlasting," as in the mistranslation of the English authorised
version.[248]

In order to complete the outline necessary for the understanding of the
Resurrection and Ascension, we must see how these various bodies are
developed in the higher evolutio