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So the offices of king, and teacher, and religious minister, have not even forfeited their earthly range of usefulness : but yet their highest origin is un- veiled by their embodiment more ideally in Christ. Mankind then are better for the Mosaic training of Israel ; and hence we can infer a Divine design. So the Church still lives by the life of Christ, and humanity is brought nearer to God by that He ftilfiUed in Himself. He then is still the Mediator between Grod and man. It is for the holier truth and the higher bless- ing that we are anxious, rather than for the name. It may be that the word Moloch means only king, and Baal lord, and Jupiter (or Diespiter) the bright father, or in its later use, God the father — ^yet if the rites connected with one of such names were bloody, and with another, licentious, and with a third, clouded by superstitious fable, our consciences stand aloof from what does not suit the holiness of the true God. So, if the Vedic Deities were natural objects, and the triad of the second stage of Hinduism were sacerdotal generalisations, and the Pauranic mythology full of confused fables, and if S&kya, or his followers, can put in the place of such things no clear sight of the Governor of the world, and no fulfilment of what sacrifice means from a true heart to God, it is not for names we contend when we shew you the more excellent way of Christ. We rather offer you truth here, and immortality hereafter. We address you with some hope of finding an answer in your own consciences, that what Clirist commands is right, and what He promises, desirable ; but also with a clear history, shewing in- stances of our promises for this life having been fulfilled in many, and for the life to come, in Christ's own rising from the grave. The books of our Christian history are not written after HISTOBICAL WITNESS TO CHRIST. DEFENCE OF IMAGERY. 445 a long period of tradition, such as you say was inspired, but such as leaves scholars to doubt * whether anything certain is known of Sdkya's life ; but our books come fresh from the com- panions of Christ, and the witnesses of His resurrection. That wonderful event is a proof that the highest God and Governor of all things must have given a mission to the Son whose &ith He thus sanctions, while the effects of the faith in the world are a perpetual witness worthy of its beginning. If then you take our history, it is a proof; if our religion, it should be of itself a persuasive ; and if its ultimate hope, nothing can be more encouraging. Do not therefore call us exclusive, but rather friendly, for offering you a better boon. (8) " But you have been pleased to say, that our views of Deity and of a Resurrection are too narrow and local. You com- plain of the doors of Heaven being opened as if with kcysf. But to bear a key was a common sign of office among the Jews ; so Christ in giving to His apostles an office of teaching, by which men should be persuaded to enter into life, says with an ex- pressive image, that He gives them the keys of heaven. Again, in speaking of the doors being shut, Christ expresses the fixed destiny of a man's lot, when he has thrown away all his opportunities, and wasted his time or capacity of working out his desire, or of even feeling what is true and good. But such sayings, and others, of the throne, and the twelve thrones of the apostles, and the sitting down to a feast, are spoken in parables which may awaken faith to an apprehension of higher things, such as truth, and peace, and holiness. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see Ood, says Christ, thereby teaching clearly, that the sight is one of faith, or of the mind. " Now the habit of using such parables can only be a re- proach to Christianity, if there is some better way of teaching * See a paper by Profeesor WilBon in one of the latest numbers of the Journal of the Royal Atiatie Society, April, 1856. f Isaiah zxiL aa ; Si Mai^ew xtL ig; xxv. 10, 11. 446 IMAGERY A SAFEGUARD AGAINST ERRORS. men ; whereas in reality no faith has ever found its disciples able to dispense with such images. All the local paradises, and hells, of the Hindtis, shew how necessary are such helps to our sensuous apprehensions. Hence even in the most direct com- munication from the Almighty to his creatures I do not see why we should expect such pictures not to be employed. They may not answer to the highest realities of spirit in themselves, but may lead us up to them by regulating our thoughts. Hence they may be parables, but yet sacred ones. How well suited the Christian pictures are to raise in us thoughts of a higher being to come, appears from the tone of mind of even our simplest Christians. If they think of God somewhat after the manner of a man, yet they never forget Him as a Judge, or make Him accomplice in sensual sin, still less worship Him as a stone. Compare even their greatest simplicity in taking literally things meant as parables, with the idolatry of most of your people, with the lefthanded S^ta worship of others, and with the vagaries of those who, like the Thugs, make a religion of crime. Such extravagances shew that men require something to regulate and elevate their thoughts. We believe that the Almighty has given us such a standard in those spiritual experiences of His Church of old which are collected in our Bible. We find no dangerous error come from the most literal reading of it ; while the wise may, if they keep humility, be led on into higher views of things eternal, " I do not know what justifies you in speaking positively against a resurrection of the body. It certainly is easier to conceive of our souls as immortal. But then would souls dis- embodied have a complete humanity ? We have no experience of their acquiring impressions, or developing powers, except in connexion with matter. We do not know what process of refine- ment the body may be capable of. Perhaps a more subtle texture, or delicate organism, such as * the subtle person' some of your sects imagine, may be the instrument of our soul's activity hereafter. Such a glorified companion might be less RESURRECTION— IMMORTALITY— TRANSMIGRATION— ." AGES." 447 open to injury or pain, yet capable of affection, and of a higher interest in the works of tlie Creator. But, if you say that any possible body, being organised, must admit of decay, and so our life would not be eternal, this objection comes ill from men who put before us a series of many transmigrations. Again, even a bodily life in some higher form, may yet have more con- sciousness, and pleasure, than the final apathy, little better than extinction, which is the highest bliss you aspire to. We look by faith, as Christians, for a rest more blessed than a fresh birth in this earthly world, yet for a life more active than your breath- less absorption. The earliest Christians believed that the resurrection would not be imtil God had made new heavens and a new earth, fit for spirits made perfect. Our faith is still in its substance the same ; though, as the mystery of the subject tempts conjecture, some fancy that the spirits of the departed enter at once into joy ; and these would not dispute with you about a bodily resurrection. Others think, more agreeably to the letter of the scripture, that our bodies are raised and glori- fied, or else that a new organisation, perhaps in some distant world, is given to the soul. Nor should I wonder if some of them would reconcile a part of your doctrine with their own, by thinking that a succession of lives may be a succession of steps of glory, as star differs from star. They might think that men are bom again in some higher world, as in a resurrection, with organs fitted for a higher life ; yet such a life, though having tlie seed of immortality, might yet be finite, so far as to admit of a higher one beyond it. Thus souls might migrate, and men rise again in successive ages, as the Divine Wisdom might de- termine. Only from this present life we must ever hold that the great impulse is given, by which God, revealing himself as our Father, delivers us from evil, and takes us into his spiritual kingdom. Nor could we think patiently of any dream of our falling from such consciousness into a lower estate of animals : still less could we bear to imagine, that souls, once made in the image of the Eternal, can ever lose the individuality He 448 DAY OF JUDGMENT.