s task than in
seeking along physiological lines to find room for a soul. The theory of
Christianity has only to be fairly stated to make manifest its thorough
independence of all the usual speculations on Immortality. The theory is
not that thought, volition, or emotion, as such are to survive the
grave. The difficulty of holding a doctrine in this form, in spite of
what has been advanced to the contrary, in spite of the hopes and wishes
of mankind, in spite of all the scientific and philosophical attempts to
make it tenable, is still profound. No secular theory of personal
continuance, as even Butler acknowledged, does not equally demand the
eternity of the brute. No secular theory defines the point in the chain
of Evolution at which organisms became endowed with Immortality. No
secular theory explains the condition of the endowment, nor indicates
its goal. And if we have nothing more to fan hope than the unexplored
mystery of the whole region, or the unknown remainders among the
potencies of Life, then, as those who have "hope only in this world," we
are "of all men the most miserable."

When we turn, on the other hand, to the doctrine as it came from the
lips of Christ, we find ourselves in an entirely different region. He
makes no attempt to project the material into the immaterial. The old
elements, however refined and subtle as to their matter, are not in
themselves to inherit the Kingdom of God. That which is flesh is flesh.
Instead of attaching Immortality to the natural organism, He introduces
a new and original factor which none of the secular, and few even of the
theological theories, seem to take sufficiently into account. To
Christianity, "he that hath the Son of God hath Life, and he that hath
not the Son hath not Life." This, as we take it, defines the
correspondence which is to bridge the grave. This is the clue to the
nature of the Life that lies at the back of the spiritual organism. And
this is the true solution of the mystery of Eternal Life.

There lies a something at the back of the correspondences of the
spiritual organism--just as there lies a something at the back of the
natural correspondences. To say that Life is a correspondence is only to
express the partial truth. There is something behind. Life manifests
itself in correspondences. But what determines them? The organism
exhibits a variety of correspondences. What organizes them? As in the
natural, so in the spiritual, there is a Principle