not resist the hope that, if I succeeded in executing it, it might do some good. The book was considerably advanced, when I was appointed to the Hulsean Lectureship in the University of Cambridge; and it was permitted me to utilise for my Lectures some of the materials already collected for my book. In fact, the first and the three last chapters of the book contain the substance of the argument put forward in the Lectures, although a good deal that is explanatory or illustrative has been added to them; the remaining two chapters are new. Thus the Essay is in part scholarly and in part popular; it is not altogether such as it would have been if it were designed for one class of readers only; but I trust that, with all its faults, it may be regarded as a serious contribution to theological thought upon one of the greatest of subjects. J. E. C. WELLDON. HARROW SCHOOL, March, 1898. “Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ?" JOB xiv. Io. “ τίς οἶδεν ἐι τὸ ζῆν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῆν.” EURIPIDES. "Il importe à toute la vie de savoir si l'âme est mortelle ou im mortelle."-PASCAL. THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY INTRODUCTION THE object of this Essay may be easily stated. Controversy rages, and perhaps will always rage around the evidences and probabilities of the Christian Faith. Such controversy has its own necessity, its own value and its own end. But behind all such controversy lie those great questions without which the Christian Faith itself can hardly become a subject of discussion. The existence of God, and as its corollary the Immortality of the soul, are the postulates of all Revelation. If they are not true, neither Christianity nor any other spiritual religion can be true. In trying to recommend the belief in Immortality by such considerations as are independent of Christianity, I hope it may be said that I am in a sense preparing the way for Christian belief. There are many persons who are not theologians and yet have deep thoughts and feelings about religion; they may be more or less instructed, more or less convinced; they may wish or they may not wish to believe; but they are ready to face the facts of human nature and life, although they set little store by authority; and an argument conscientiously addressed to them is sure of a conscientious criticism at their hands. It is to them that I would respectfully offer this little book. I do not ask them, and indeed it would be idle to ask them, to accept what is said, because this or that thinker has said it; but I ask them to ponder it and then to accept or reject it as they may think well. At least they will recognise in simple honesty the vast and vital importance of the doctrine for which I plead. 1 plead for a belief in the soul's Immortality; I seek no more than that. The revelations propounded to mankind have filled up (so to say) the area of the Immortal Life more or less positively, more or less piously. I do not in this essay aspire to fill it up. It is enough for my purpose if there be an Immortality within which the Providence of the Almighty may work out its inscrutable designs. |