Why was this world slowly built through thousands of ages? Just as a platform for this "I" to develop character. Why was the Incarnation and Death of the Everlasting Son of God? Why is the gift and energy of the Holy Spirit? Why is the perpetual intercession of Christ in Heaven? Why is the grace and power of the Sacraments in life? Why are the boundless prospects opened beyond the grave?
All for the sake of this mysterious permanent supernatural being that we call "I." Measure I say by what God has done for it, the tremendous value He sets on your immortal soul.
[1] In a simple, popular statement such as this it would but be confusing to go into nice metaphysical distinctions of soul and "spirit."
CHAPTER II
THE THREE STAGES OF EXISTENCE
§ 1
Now, grip with both hands the fact that this life, as you know it, is but one single stage in God's plan for you—the Kindergarten stage, the caterpillar stage of your existence. That in five thousand years that spiritual being looking out from behind the mask of your face to-day will be living still, and feeling still, and thinking still. That what you call death, the end of this career, is but birth into a new and more exciting career, stretching away into the far future, age after age, aeon after aeon, whose prospect should stir the very blood within us.
There is nothing which so touches some of us as a thing with "makings" in it, a thing with untold potentialities in it, a thing which may come in the future to God only knows what. Talk of the caterpillar which is to develop into the butterfly or the acorn which shall one day be a mighty oak. Why, these miracles are but child's play compared with the miracles potentially wrapped up in this poor little self. No wildest fairy tale can suggest the wonder of its possibilities as it passes out into the new adventure of the life beyond.
§ 2
Thirteen hundred years ago there was an eager discussion in the court of King Edward of Northumbria. The old wattled hall was blazing with torches and a crowd of eager listeners hung intent on the teaching of the Christian missionaries who had just arrived. At last a grim bearded old earl rose in his place. "Can this new religion," he asked, "tell us of what happens after death? The life of man is like a swallow flying through this lighted hall. It enters in at one door from the darkness outside, and flitting through the light and warmth passes through the farther door into the dark unknown beyond. Can this new religion solve for us the mystery? What comes to men in the dark, dim unknown?"