460 Life and Immortality. 



Had it not been for this religion man's spiritual side would 

 not have been developed in civilized life. And although 

 there are numberless individuals who are all unconscious of 

 its development in themselves, yet these have been influenced 

 to an enormous extent by the religious atmosphere by which 

 they are surrounded. 



Not only is Christianity so immeasurably in advance of 

 all other religions, but it is no less of every other system of 

 thought that has ever been promulgated in regard to what is 

 moral and spiritual. Neither philosophy, science nor poetry 

 has ever produced results in thought, conduct or beauty in 

 any degree comparable with it. What has science or phi- 

 losophy done for the thought of mankind compared with 

 what has been done by the single doctrine, " God is love?" 

 The Story of the Cross, from its commencement in prophetic 

 aspiration to its culmination in the Gospel, is preeminently 

 the most magnificent presentation in literature. Only to a 

 man wholly destitute of religious perception can Christianity 

 fail to appear the greatest exhibition of the beautiful, the sub- 

 lime, and of all else that appeals to our spiritual nature, 

 which has ever been known upon the earth. It is not only 

 adapted to men of the highest culture, but the most remarka- 

 ble thing about it is its perfect adaptation to all sorts and 

 conditions of men. Its problems, historical and philosophical, 

 open up to you worlds of material, over which you may 

 spend your life with the same interminable interest as the 

 student meets in the fields of natural science. 



Whatever our theory of the origin of man, there can be 

 no doubt that we all feel that his intellectual part is higher 

 than the animal ; and that the moral is higher than the intel- 

 lectual, whatever our theory of either may be ; and that the 

 spiritual is higher than, the moral, whatever our theory of 

 religion may be. It is what is understood by his moral, and 

 still more by his spiritual qualities, that make up what is 

 called his character, and, astonishing to say, it is character 

 that tells in the long run. Morality and spirituality are two 



