NATURE AND MAN. 177 



carry our thoughts, here, alike beyond moral changes 

 and individual men. The spiritual state is not the 

 moral condition merely: it is that essential being 

 from which the moral condition flows. And man's 

 deadness is not an individual thing, nor to be 

 removed by individual change; it has a wider 

 sphera^mbracing all humanity, and a wider remedy 

 embracing also all humanity. So we find, in the 

 language of St. Paul, a clear distinction drawn 

 between the life of which he had already become 

 the recipient, and the perfect life for which he 

 hoped. According to his words, salvation may be 

 ours now; yet we look also for a salvation more 

 complete hereafter. 



If, then, this state of ours do not exhibit it, what 

 is the true Life of Man ? We have some means of 

 answering this question. In all times and in all 

 places men have looked forward to a different and 

 better state of being. Under various forms the idea 

 has ever been present to their thought and to their 

 hope : it is emphatically present to our own. It 

 appeared to me, as my thoughts respecting life 

 unfolded themselves, that the time had come when 



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