a is consonant with the more youthful nature of the West, to
whose people one birth, followed by a life of energy, furnishes an
entrance into eternal joy beyond.

It is equally important that we take note of that which is connoted by
the final consummation offered by each of these two faiths to their
followers. To the Christian there is a conscious, blessed life beyond
death--a separate, personal existence which will last throughout
eternity in the sunshine of the Heavenly Father's presence and in the
ineffable joy and glory of His fellowship. It is the idealized life
built upon the foundation of what is best and most stirring and
beautiful here upon earth. It is _life_, in all that this blessed word
signifies of sweet contemplation, of blissful activity, of
imperishable love, and of unspeakable joy. All the most beautiful and
enticing imagery of earth has been used to portray, or rather to
suggest, the "eternal life" of the Christian religion.

But what is the picture which Hinduism has drawn of the finality of
life to its followers? After the weary fugue of births and rebirths,
with its interludes of many heavens and hells, the "self" passes on
into final union with the Divine Soul. It loses all consciousness and
self-knowledge; every vestige of personality and all that this implies
is swept away; it is incapacitated for every emotion of joy and for
every act of service. There is nothing that we associate with life at
its best and sweetest which does not find here negation. It is a calm
blank, a rest, indeed, but from every struggle of thought, will, and
emotion. This is the consummation which India has for many centuries
held aloft as an attraction to its weary pilgrims.

Here, again, we observe how appropriate to the end in view is the
supreme difficulty of the way. If the highest struggle of the soul in
this world is against existence and its human actions and conditions,
it is to be expected that a complete riddance of life and of all its
accompaniments will be the _summum bonum_ of the final consummation.
And if this struggle for emancipation is to continue through
numberless births and earthly existences, it is natural that the
coveted end should bring a loss of all that life connotes in highest
sentiment as well as basest passion. I need not dwell upon the
contrast between this and the anticipations entertained by every
humble Christian.

This whole eschatological system of Hinduism corresponds, as we have