But if it is self-will, he asks, how is it to be overcome?
Not by any kind of force; for force cannot bend the will. Not by any kind of external transaction; that may remit the penalty, but will not of itself change the will. It must be by the revelation of a love so intense that no heart which beats can remain indifferent to it.
All this seems to me admirably said. It does at least show that there are clear, logical, and practical reasons for the religious hypothesis. The mind of man, seeking to penetrate the physical mysteries of the universe, encounters Mind. Mind meets Mind. Reason recognises, if it does not always salute, Reason. And in this rational and evolving universe the will of man has a struggle with itself, a struggle on which man clearly sees the fortunes of his progress, both intellectual and spiritual, depend. Will recognises Will. And surveying the history of his race he comes to a standstill of love and admiration before only one life—
a life whose historic occurrence is amply demonstrated, whose moral and spiritual pre-eminence consists in the completeness of self-sacrifice, and whose inspiration for those who try to imitate it is without parallel in human experience.
Love recognises Love. "I am the Light of the World."
I will give a few brief quotations from Dr. Temple's pages showing how he regards the revelation of the Creative Will made by Christ, Who "in His teaching and in His Life is the climax of human ethics."
Love, and the capacity to grow in love, is the whole secret.
The one thing demanded is always the power to grow. Growth and progress in the spiritual life is the one thing Christ is always demanding.
He took bread and said that it was His body; and He gave thanks for it, He broke it, and He gave it to them and said, "Do this in remembrance of Me." . . . Do what? . . . The demand is nothing less than this, that men should take their whole human life, and break it, and give it for the good of others.
The growth in love, and the sacrifice which evokes that growth in love, are, I would suggest the most precious things in life. Take away the condition of this and you will destroy the value of the spiritual world.