256 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



of the dead. This is what God really is — imper- 

 sonated Love, fulfilled, complete ; and what a com' 

 plete soul of man is called to be and to do, is to 

 fulfil itself by playing this same divine part ; assum- 

 ing it even in this finite world below, in the place and 

 after the manner that the temporal burdens of each 

 impose, and the terrestrial gifts of each make possible. 

 Thus the absolute reality of man, the absolute 

 reality of all souls, comes forward as a complemental 

 part of Christ's doctrine of God. Every soul in the 

 great circle of this divine society, in which God is 

 but the central member, has in this conception of 

 God the quickening assurance that he is treated 

 by the Eternal as a being indeed literally and com- 

 pletely /;rr, — free not only in the sense that his 

 own conviction is the sole arbiter of his actions, but 

 in the larger sense that all possibilities of growth in 

 conscious life are open to him, even divine possibili- 

 ties, since there is but one standard of action in the 

 eternal circle of spirits, and that is the spirit of love 

 displayed by God. And this freedom of infinite 

 scope in growth involves the reality, and carries with 

 it the assurance, of imperishable continuance. Ac- 

 cordingly we may explicate the new doctrine of Jesus 

 into these three truths: (i)That God is the perfect 

 Person, the central member in the universal society 

 actuated by love ; (2) that the soul is immortal ; 

 (3) that it is free, both in the sense of being the 



