We cannot tell; that is, of this generation. But we may trust in the prevailing strength of truth. Generations pass, but that endures. And the prophet's word goes on:—'the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.'
CHAPTER XII
Nel suo profondo vidi che s'interna,
legato con amore in un volume,
cio che per l'universo si squaderna.
Dante.
For the Christian the barrier that finally checks the advance of life is not death but a self-concentrated self. It is freedom misused and lost, freedom turning against the life that has striven to bring it to birth. Perversity builds that barrier and human life cannot pass it or—shall we not say with the Christian?—God cannot pass it. This alone thwarts the divine purpose for man and brings about the 'second' and only true death.
We have nothing to urge against this teaching of religion; we see the second death beginning in every man who is perverting freedom from its life-furthering office. We see in him that which he seems to have being taken away. Moreover, we are prepared to believe that the first death, willingly accepted (as we have also seen) as an element in purposive and potent life, is but the gate through which men pass to more of life. We may have our moments of doubt, because we cannot see with our eyes the other side of that gate, and the sense-habit is strong within us; but reason demands, as the Christian religion declares, that life that is growing here and is big with promise unfulfilled shall go on there.
The Christian seems to know much of the other side of that gate that other people do not know. He talks of heaven, of paradise, of hell. We understand him when he talks of hell; there is so much evidence of that here and now. But we are less clear about his paradise, less clear still about his heaven. What does he really mean when he speaks, all too positively and definitely (we think), about these two?