hood of Jesus, we cannot think that all is said. It would, indeed, be unworthy of us if we did not carry our thoughts beyond those of personal love, if we did not expand all we have learnt in our own life of love into a more universal conception of it. We cannot think that Jesus limited his brotherhood to his disciples, or the union of man to God to the few who knew him. That was not what the Evangelist thought was in the mind of Jesus. He had a vaster view of his Master's meaning; he conceived Jesus as the man, in whom all the race was contained, in whom all mankind was the child of the universal Father; and this was the idea John heard Jesus express in this message, "All men, as well as you, are my brothers, and I carry them up with me on high, and make my Sonship theirs, in union with my Father and their Father, with my God and their God."

the next.

This thought of universal man bound up for ever in Jesus with the universal Father is the thought on which all high and noble theology rests everlastingly, is everlastingly to be wrought out in this world and No doctrine of God and man, which contradicts or violates its infinite love, can or will endure. We may be sure of that, however the theologians enrage together, or the priests imagine a vain thing. Yes, all the future of religion, all religious life in a nobler society, all that worship in common to which we look forward, when there will be no more divisions among men, when religious folk shall be no more the worst sinners against the

brotherhood of man, when man, having realized his universal brotherhood, shall have also realized a universal Fatherhood in God, shall, on the foundation of this mighty conception, be built up into a mighty temple, in which all nations, kindreds, colours, and tongues shall adore and love, praise and pray to one all-embracing Love; and all men and women, rejoicing in eternal love and communion, shall, every morning that arises and every evening that falls, in the labour of every day and the rest of every night, say always to one another, "My God and your God, my Father and your Father."

THE ETERNAL LIFE

Easter Day, 1909

"He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."-ST. JOHN xi. 25.

PHRASES of this kind, frequent in the Gospels of Jesus, have been largely taken to mean that his disciples, after physical death, should rise into eternal life, and no doubt that meaning may be attached to the words. But that was not their primary meaning. That meaning, on the lips of Jesus, was a spiritual one, and belonged originally, not to the life to come, but to this life. When Jesus said to the messengers of John the Baptist, "Tell him that the dead are raised,” he meant that he lifted the spiritually dead into a new life. When he declared that those who came to him should never die, he spoke of that life and death of which he told when, in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, he made the father say, "This, my son, was dead, and is alive again."

I do not say that Jesus did not often speak of a personal life, after this life, in another world; on the contrary, that was one of his firmest convictions, and, indeed, it is a clear corollary from his statement that he created a spiritual life in the souls of living

men; but I do say that in all the passages where, in relation to the spiritual kingdom, he speaks of death and life, he is speaking of the death and life of the soul in this present world.

What, then, did he mean? He meant that whosoever, believing what he taught, left behind him the spirit of self and the practice of sin, left death behind him, and passed into union with that everlasting life which is the life of love-the life of God. He was

raised from the dead.

That is our Easter faith, our Easter certainty. That there are such resurrections in this world is not a matter of doubt, but a matter of experience. That men rise out of graves of evil here, and are reborn into a new being-into goodness, love, joy, and righteous activity-that, at least, can be demonstrated. And, in all cases, the resurrection is made as Jesus declared it was made, by the recovery of love, which feels, "I will live no longer for myself. I will live and die for others, because I love them." Men may call themselves what they please―atheist, agnostic, unbeliever; it matters little if they live in this way of Jesus. They have risen from the dead. They belong in spirit to that great Easter company who are alive with Jesus Christ.

Therefore, let all who love their fellow-men, and live in that love, keep this sacred time together, in heart and spirit, even though they do not confess Christ, even though in opinion they may be divided. But let those who do confess Jesus as their Master, and who love their fellows on the same ground on

which he loved them, that they are the children of God whose life is absolute love, be knit together at this time, by a deeper, dearer bond, which neither trouble, failure, nor death, shall sever-risen children of the eternal life, and brothers for ever in it; and cry to one another the ancient welcome with which the Christian disciples hailed one another on Easter Day-"Christ is arisen."

And then, when thus welcoming one another, we feel that Christ and mankind are one, a nobler vision, the vision of a far-off day, brightens before us-when, in the fulness of a redeemed mankind, we shall say to one another, filled with the joy of a greater Easter, "All humanity is arisen. All love, and are loved. All are in God, and God in all.”

Alas! the fulfilment of this happiness seems far away. Year after year comes the spring, but but year after year the winter. Age after age mankind clothes itself in the joy of a new life of thought and feeling. The harvest of these Pentecosts is reaped ; and then there are years of wintry evil; bitter storms and frost are at the heart of humanity, and man's eternal summer seems a dream. Yet, the day will come; it is the hope, the impulse, the inspiration of the nations. We live by faith in it.

Meanwhile, if we would believe in it, or realize it for ourselves, so that our life may urge on its advent, there is but one part to take. It is to follow him whose new-born power in a new life was secured by his death of love; to forget ourselves in the life of humanity; to leave that land of death where we