dicate that the spiritual nature
of man is the highest part of man--the [culminating] point of his being.

It is probably true, as Renan says in his posthumous work, that there
will always be materialists and spiritualists, inasmuch as it will
always be observable on the one hand that there is no thought without
brain, while, on the other hand, instincts of man will always aspire to
higher beliefs. But this is just what ought to be if religion is true,
and we are in a state of probation. And is it not probable that the
materialistic position (discredited even by philosophy) is due simply to
custom and want of imagination? Else why the inextinguishable instincts?

It is much more easy to disbelieve than to believe. This is obvious on
the side of reason, but it is also true on that of spirit, for to
disbelieve is in accordance with environment or custom, while to believe
necessitates a spiritual use of the imagination. For both these
reasons, very few unbelievers have any justification, either
intellectual or spiritual, for their own unbelief.

Unbelief is usually due to indolence, often to prejudice, and never a
thing to be proud of.

'Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should
raise the dead?' Clearly no answer can be given by the pure agnostic.
But he will naturally say in reply, 'the question rather is, why should
it be thought credible with you that there is a God, or, if there is,
that he should raise the dead?' And I think the wise Christian will
answer, 'I believe in the resurrection of the dead, partly on grounds of
reason, partly on those of intuition, but chiefly on both combined; so
to speak, it is my whole character which accepts the whole system of
which the doctrine of personal immortality forms an essential part.' And
to this it may be fairly added that the Christian doctrine of the
resurrection of our bodily form cannot have been arrived at for the
purpose of meeting modern materialistic objections to the doctrine of
personal immortality; hence it is certainly a strange doctrine to have
been propounded at that time, together with its companion, and scarcely
less distinctive, doctrine of the vileness of the body. Why was it not
said that the 'soul' alone should survive as a disembodied 'spirit'? Or
if form were supposed necessary for man as distinguished from God, that
he was to be an angel? But, be this as it may, the doctrine of the
resurrection seems to have fully met