what ought to be the relation of nations to nations, of nations to tribes of every type and colour, of men to men all over the world. And they describe what will be in the fulness of time, when the body of mankind, past, present, and future, shall be wholly finished, and the actual be identical with the ideal Man.

It is this mighty conception which we ought to link to our thought of immortality. Without it, the desire of eternal life becomes selfish and swiftly falls to evil; with it, it grows into the grandest thought which a man can have on earth; with it, immortality binds itself up with all the noblest speculations of patriot, philosopher, and lover of man, with all the ideas of our time which have regard to an universal and united mankind, giving to them new strength and coherence, a fresher hope, an unashamed faith; and leading them beyond the silence and inaction of the tomb, where positivist and secularist bury for ever the mighty drama of the past of men, bids them look forward with a morning light in their eyes to the endless beauty and unfailing work of a mankind so loved, so deeply loved by us, that when for a moment the thought crosses our brain that it could die and make no sign, something seems to break within our heart.

IMMORTALITY.

'For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.'-Luke xx. 38.

IT has been said by the author of the 'History of Rationalism' that the discoveries of modern science form a habit of mind which is carried far beyond the limits of physics.'

Nowhere is this more true than in the scornful doubt with which some natural philosophers meet the belief in immortality, or in the bold denial which they give it. It is not long ago since I heard a geologist say, 'As a body we have given up the belief in immortality.' It may be worth while to-day to suggest, first, a cause for this wide-spread surrender of an old belief among the men who pursue physical science; secondly, to look into the reason they give for their denial, and to see if that reason be reasonable; and, thirdly, to suggest a proof of the doctrine.

1. The cause I believe to be, in the case of many men of science, an unequal development of their nature; in other words, a want of uniform culture. They give up their whole life and all its energy to the study of physical phenomena. In these phenomena they find nothing spiritual. The strata of an ocean-bed tell them

nothing, in their vast succession of life and death, of the eternal continuance of the individual. The combinations of the elements do not speak of the union of the soul with the Eternal Soul of God, and in the convolutions of the brain and the interweaving of the nerves they will not discover faith, or love, or reverence; or, not being able to deny their existence, they say that they dissolve with the nerve matter of which they are modes of motion. Not only do they study nothing but these things, but they put aside any suggestions of spiritual feeling which may come to them in their work as disturbing elements, as dimming the dry light' in which they toil. It is no wonder, then, that their spiritual faculty becomes dwarfed or paralysed, till, not finding its motions in themselves, they are ready to deny their existence elsewhere. On the other hand, their peculiar habit of mind becomes abnormally developed, and even their imagination is only used in one direction. They are like men who should sit all their life in a chair and exercise their arms violently. Their arms become immensely strong, their legs so feeble that they cannot walk. One would not be surprised to hear these persons say, 'On the whole, as a body, we have given up any belief in walking being either pleasant or intended for the human race.' The answer is, 'You are no judge till you have recovered the use of your legs.'

Nor is one in the least surprised by a similar assertion on the part of some natural philosophers with regard to immortality. Given the previous habit of mind and work, what else but unbelief could ensue ? Only we can scarcely refrain a smile when the assertion is made

with a certain Pharisaic air, Nature, I thank thee, I am not led away by superstition or feeling, even as these Christians,' and the only possible answer is a smile, such as the natural philosopher would greet a religious man with, who had as much neglected his intellect and its exercise as the denier of immortality has neglected his spirit and its exercise, and who should say, as if it settled the whole question, On the whole we have ceased to believe in the truth of the theory of gravitation.'

But again, as there are some who have lost the use of the religious powers through neglect of them, so there are others in whom the religious powers seem wholly wanting. They seem to be born with a radical defect in their nature, and they can no more see the truth or the necessity of immortality than some who are colour blind can see the beauty or the use of colour. None are more upright than this class of scientific men; they love truth and pursue after it in physics without one backward step. But they cannot understand the things of the spirit, for these are naturally foolishness to them.

I can see the use, almost the necessity, of this. Nature has to be ruthlessly examined, forced step by step to yield her secrets. The good of the race demands that a certain amount of this work should be done by men who are not disturbed by the speculations or the passions of the spirit, and though there are many who unite with ease the realms of faith and of experiment under one government, yet there are a few whose work is needed in physics and who would do but little therein if they were called on to contend also in the

world of the spirit. These, I think, are so far sacrificed in this life for the good of the whole; allowed to remain imperfect men that they may do their own special work in a perfect manner. And we accept their work with gratitude, and say to ourselves when we regret their want, God has plenty of time to finish the education of His labourers; that which is deficient here will be added hereafter.' But at the same time, while we recognise the excellent work of these philosophers in their own sphere, we ask of them not to force upon us the results of their blindness in another region. If a man cannot see red, we do not let him impose on us the statement that red is not to be seen, even though he may be a perfect musician. If a man cannot conceive immortality, we do not let him impose on us the statement that immortality is a vain dream, even though he may be a natural philosopher of the first rank. We are bound to say to the one, As a musician we accept your criticisms; as a judge of colour you are of no value ; and to the other, As a natural philosopher we bow to your conclusions; as a judge of the truth or falsehood of immortality your opinion is worthless.

Again, in no way is the habit of mind of which we are speaking carried further than in the saying of some physiologists that all thought and feeling are inseparably bound up with physical form, with nervous centres and the rest;-that form makes mind, and therefore that mind, feeling, memory, and the desires, the pain, and the joy of that which we call the spirit, perish with the dissolution of the machine of which they are part. I have just as good a right to start from the