is to be abolished, that all things are to be reconciled unto God, and He shall be all in all.

Various attempts have been made to solve this problem, the latest being to take advantage of the element of uncertainty in the language of Scripture due to the fallible human element that enters into its structure. On this account it is claimed that the decision of this question must rest largely upon the Christian consciousness.

Those, however, who stand by the text of Scripture as the fixed arbiter in the case divide themselves into three principal divisions in their solution.

1. The traditional and dogmatic party insist that man as to his soul or person is immortal, and that, if he fails of salvation in this life, he must exist forever in endless misery.

2. A large and increasingly influential party deny that man is by nature an immortal existence, and maintain that it is contrary to the whole logic of the plan of creation and redemption as set forth in Scripture to suppose that immortality can pertain to anything or any one except as the creature partakes of the divine nature of the Creator. They affirm, therefore, that only those who receive power through Christ to become the sons of God have everlasting life, and that all other men perish and are destroyed

forever.

3. A third class affirm with equal confidence that all who died in Adam are to be made alive in Christ, and that through His "much more" abounding grace all wandering prodigals shall, after adequate suffering, find their way back to the Father's house.

To most minds these divers solutions have seemed

irreconcilable, and each party therefore brands the solution of the other as heresy.

To do this, however, they are compelled to overlook and even to deny the truth for which each stands.

Fundamentally, the whole question must be determined by the answer given to this question-What is the true nature of man? The answer we propose, as furnishing a solution that does not sacrifice anything that is true in these three partial attempts, is that man, as to the essence of his being, is immortal, but as to his existence and present personality, is mortal and may, yea, must, be destroyed, except so far as he yields his person a living sacrifice to God. Man, in essence, therefore, is of a divine nature, and this determines that he must finally be personalized in God's image. But man, as he exists, may be a most unworthy vessel to contain that nature, and hence, as to his person, he becomes a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction.

This principle opens up to us the true meaning of resurrection, in which, as the radical fact of the gospel, there is contained the key to all Scripture mysteries. The first of the three parties above referred to is driven, by its illogical assumption that man, as a sinful being, exists forever, to infer that the purpose of his resurrection is to restore to him complete existence in body and soul, in order to complete his being as a subject of eternal torment. Such a view of resurrection is unscriptural and absurd. The second of these parties also denies that there can be any gracious or redemptive feature in the restoration of this class from death, and explains their resurrection as in order to the completion of their punishment in death. A

section of this party of conditionalists, however, perceiving the incongruity of this view of resurrection as a mere prelude to another death, deny that resurrection, which they are compelled to regard as a provision of grace, awaits the wicked at all.

The Universalists, while they are more consistent in affirming that resurrection must be redemptive, yet fail to distinguish between the deliverance of the essential man and the existent man. Their doctrine implies that the personal man, as now existent, is the subject of salvation. Whereas, the truth is that the deliverance of the essential or divine nature in man for further experiment and progress toward the goal of perfect manhood requires the destruction of the man as now personally existent, except so far as the personal traits and treasures of his present existence may be appropriated and transformed by the Spirit of God. Hence Jesus taught His disciples that every one of their offending members must be lopped off, if the whole body were to be saved from being cast into hell. He taught also that the life or "soul" which is to be saved must first be lost. To this teaching is conformed that of Paul, who constantly insists that the old or natural man must be crucified in order that out of its death the new man may be raised. While, therefore, it is true that man is in essence a child of God, and must, therefore, finally bear His image, it is far from being true that his existing personality must necessarily be saved and fitted up into a temple for that image. His personality will be saved for this purpose just so far as it is surrendered to God for this high use. So far as it finds the end of its existence within the narrow limits of self, so far it must be destroyed.

Again, therefore, we affirm, as an essential principle of the new eschatology that personal continuity of being goes with character, and that, while man, as a child of God, must live forever, man, as now personally manifested, must be destroyed, except as he takes on the true image of God. And the constant teaching of Scripture as to the purpose of God to destroy the wicked from before him, requires us to believe that their existent manhood may be so pervaded by evil that its destruction may carry with it the whole of their former selves. Such personalities become vessels of wrath, fit only for destruction. But then the divine essence contained in the vessel cannot be destroyed. It must be gathered up and put into another vessel until it obtain one fit for its use.

This is the meaning of the provision to restore even the unjust from the dead. Their resurrection can be only one of judgment—inasmuch as it necessarily rejects that which was proved to be only fitted for death. And it must still confine the spirit of man within that sphere of judgment and discipline in which alone the offspring of God can be trained for their high destiny. But still resurrection is vindicated as being essentially an intervention of God's grace. It takes up again the case of even the man who "loses himself and is cast away."

Thus all three of the above solutions are seen to be partial, and yet true in part. The orthodox may hold on to the idea of an eternal punishment which is an eternal stripping of the man of the prerogatives and treasures of his present personal existence. The conditionalist may justly hold that this destruction is so radical as to carry with it the very soul and self of the man as now existent,

while the Universalist may hold that the deeper, the inmost self of man being divine, cannot be destroyed, but must be rehabilitated in another form of existence, along which it may pursue its path toward its final goal of divine manhood. But at the same time it is shown where he must needs correct and guard his doctrine against the perversion of this hope of the gospel, for it enables him to still warn the wicked that, if they persist in their wickedness, they cannot save their souls alive in the day of consuming fire when the fabric of every man's life must be tried of what sort it is.

NOTHING KNOWN.

Professor Max Müller, in the "Gifford Lectures on Anthropological Religion," after showing that the religious sentiment among all nations furnishes strong proof that the soul survives the death of the body, argues further that as to the where and the how of this future existence, we are wholly ignorant. He says:

First of all came the question, where do the souls of the departed exist? All the answers returned are equally natural, all are equally unobjectionable, but likewise equally not proven because they are beyond the reach of proof. The best answer was perhaps that contained in the most ancient Greek language and mythology, that the souls had gone to the house of the Invisible, of Aides. No one has ever said anything truer. The house of the Invisible was placed, as we saw, either beneath the earth, or beyond the earth in the west, in the land of the setting sun; while others who looked upon heaven as the abode