Social, and Religious Life of Man. 2 1 3 



its relations to other creatures, and to the universe to 

 which it belongs so perfect as to deserve to be spoken 

 of as " very good " and that man originally was no 

 brute-descended savage, living in a wilderness, and 

 righting his way upwards, step by step, to a higher level, 

 but a demi-god, walking and talking, as a child with his 

 parent, with the God in whose image he was made, 

 until for some fault of his own he was driven out into 

 the wilderness, ' wretched, and miserable, and poor, and 

 blind, and naked? and so far oblivious of everything 

 relating to his high descent as to put Moloch in the 

 place of God nothing to prevent me from adopting the 

 conclusion already arrived at that man is in the full 

 sense of the words the " image of God," and that his life, 

 personal, social, and religious, only ceases to be enig- 

 matical when this old-fashioned doctrine is used as the 

 key to it. 



Nor is the dignity of the Godhead in any way 

 compromised by regarding man as the " image of God." 

 For what is the conclusion to which I have been 

 compelled to come respecting man ? It is that he is 

 more than that "mortal man, immersed in blood, 

 encased in flesh," and " lapsed in time and passion," 

 about which the senses speak so loudly. It is that he 

 has, in addition to this " body of death," not only an 

 undying corporeal presence, which may or may not be 

 made manifest to the senses, but also a trans-corporeal 

 presence, which is no less than immortal, ubiquitous, 

 god-like spirit. It is that he is a being, not apart and 

 alone, but one with all men, and with nature as a whole, 

 and with Him who is the author and upholder of 

 nature. The view taken, indeed, is one in which man, 

 in order to be wholly himself, must enter fully into this 



