in this world are presently followed by such success and happiness as to provoke envy in the materialistic and egoistic are not generally of the noblest. The highest goodness has led rather to the Cross.

But we can understand how this prediction may have been fulfilled in the life after death. Jesus depicted Dives suffering torments in Hades and beholding Lazarus in Paradise. And psychical research affords good evidence of a period of happiness after death enjoyed by souls who have lived nobly in the flesh. It seems that with the escape from the material body the soul derives joy from the unhampered exercise of altruistic and idealistic qualities, and misery from the unsatisfied strivings of egoistic and materialistic desires. Such strenuous and heroic faith and love as breathed in the early Christians would, in this view, result after death in heavenly ecstasy and sweet fellowship of souls. Might not those who had spurned the Gospel, or had given but feeble and indolent allegiance to Christ, after death, being aware of the joy of the faithful, regret bitterly that they had not used their opportunity of becoming worthy of it? Might not the arrogant and avaricious and malicious among the religious leaders of the Jews, distraught with the misery that such dispositions produce, experience envy and humiliation at the knowledge that the despised followers of Jesus had entered into the blissful rest of the people of God? Surely the Kingdom of Heaven was in some form realized behind the veil for those who had surrendered wealth and reputation and ties of kindred and life for the sake of the Gospel. And we may conjecture that those who rejected Jesus knew this to their chagrin and their shame.

So, when in a later age the evils and possibilities of good in civilization call for a great development of Christian love, and in the light of new knowledge devoted service for the evolution of humanity into the Kingdom of God, there will be after death for those

who respond to that call joy and peace, but for those who, refusing to listen, live for the material interest of self and kindred misery and remorse. As before, there are last that shall be first, and there are first that shall be last.

Such is Divine judgment. It is the removal of growths of human nature inimical to the development of the character of man which is suitable to the Kingdom of God. It goes on in individuals and in societies, in the corporeal and in the incorporeal worlds, continuously from age to age. But when evil has waxed great and powerful, trampling on good and defiant of the justice of the Universe, then does judgment fall with tragic might and swiftness. And thereafter the evildoers are with bitter pains purged, that they may share in the growing humanity.

growing

life of

CHAPTER XII

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

JESUS expected in the near future a new condition of life for human souls, which He called the Kingdom of God. But little is recorded of His idea of the nature of the Kingdom of God. We may gather that in it God and souls would be in much closer fellowship than before, that it would be blissful, that the physical condition of existence would be different, there being, in particular, no death or sex. Apparently He expected it to come into existence suddenly and visibly over a wide area. On the other hand, it could exist as the secret possession of individuals before that, and was growing. Some would be excluded from it owing to lack of moral and religious preparation; though, if we are to follow out the logical implications of His teaching, all would eventually enter therein. Jesus also gave abundant instruction on the religious disposition and moral character and conduct requisite and favourable to entrance, these being determined by the nature of God Himself.

Such was the original revelation by Jesus of the Kingdom of God. But He foresaw that through experience and the Holy Spirit His followers would receive further enlightenment thereupon when He was no longer with them in the flesh. As the Kingdom of God begins to be, humanity acquires more knowledge of its nature, of the manner in which it is coming into existence, and of the changes required in man in

preparation for it. We will trace very briefly the main stages of revelation concerning the Kingdom of God since the teaching of Jesus.

Shortly after the departure of Jesus came a vivid experience of life that seemed in some sense Divine and from God-life which we have chosen to call "the spiritual." This we believe to have been the germ of that which is to be the principle of the Kingdom of God. Christians began to have a foretaste of what the blissful life predicted by their Master will be-as it were, an inexpressible light and joy and love.

Secondly, it was found that this experience was most effectively won through allegiance to Jesus considered as the Redeemer appointed by God, with special thought of His crucifixion and resurrection to heavenly life. And it is easy to understand how this was. For the requisite religion and morality could be more intensely produced through allegiance to a person in whom they and their heavenly results were signally embodied, than through mere attention to His teaching, especially since this allegiance normally demanded considerable self-sacrifice and loving trust in God. The teaching gave meaning to the life, and the life made the teaching more appealing. And so faith in Jesus Christ was declared to be the means to the new life which is the germinal principle of the Kingdom of God.

After the lapse of many generations the knowledge of the realization of the Kingdom of God expands greatly. It did not come within the time expected with visible widespread glory. On the contrary, after a short period of religious activity, the early fervour and purity of Christianity succumbed to the prevalent worldliness. But morality and religion have, with occasional checks and set-backs, since been progressing in accordance with the fundamental ideas of Christianity, one period of growth commencing with advantages produced by the preceding. It seems as if the Kingdom of God would be realized in this world

through evolution of mankind in morality and religion and in other respects in the course of many generations.

For surely spiritual life must require many generations before it can complete the conquest of sin and death, although we must allow for acceleration with advance in life. For in the early years of Christianity the spiritual appeared, but did not effect this result. And scientific investigation has shown that life has occupied millions of years in coming to its present condition, and that new kinds of life are at first small, requiring a number of generations to develop their powers.

We may gather that the Kingdom of God will be realized on this globe through the development of morality and religion conditioning and being caused by spiritual life, under the Holy Spirit, and the spiritual developing until it overcomes the evils and limitations attaching to human existence. Certainly there may be times of change so rapid as to seem catastrophic, but these are just moments of transition from one period of equable construction and growth to another. The whole process of the realization of the Kingdom of God since the beginning of Christianity will appear as a process of spiritual quickening and growth of the whole nature of man, under spiritual influence from God, with its continuity to some degree broken, in the earliest stages perhaps rather than afterwards, by relapses and violent conflicts of good with evil.

But humanity has been developing in other respects. Man has been acquiring more and more knowledge and control of physical forces, whereby he makes his life securer and richer. The mind has been growing intellectually and in the perception of beauty. And the body has shown tendencies to such growth as will support a more abundant and higher life. How are we to regard such various developments other than the moral and religious and spiritual?

We should observe that a certain evolution of the