Chapter 12
It was reserved for Paul, in a moment of inspiration, to put into a single phrase a description of the goal of the human spirit, as something which may be forever approached but never reached, in these words, "Till we all attain unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." The fullness of Christ! That is the soul's final destiny. It was the far call of that goal which it faintly heard at its first awakening and which has never entirely ceased to sound in his ears. Who shall explore the contents of that great phrase? It is a subject for meditation, for prayer, but never for discussion. He who approaches it in a controversial spirit never understands it. What are the qualities of the character of Christ? Some of them lie on the surface of the story. He never doubted God, or, if so, but for a single moment; He was unselfish; He lived to love and to express love; He had some mysterious preternatural power over nature--such, perhaps, as science is approaching in later times; kindness, sympathy, helpfulness, purity, shone from His words and actions. He declared that the privilege of dying to save those who despised Him was a joy. He lived in the limitations of the human condition and, therefore, on the earth only hints of "His fullness" are discernible. The full revelation is to be the endless study of those who are able to see and to appreciate things as they are. But we may ask ourselves whither these lines tend. When the intelligence, the love, the compassion, the mercy, the purity, the moral power and spiritual grandeur which only in dim outline are revealed in the Christ, have perfect manifestations, what will the vision be? The very thought transcends the farthest flights of the poet's imagination and the most daring speculations of philosophers. In "the fullness of Christ" is the soul's true goal. For that all men, and not the elect few, were created. That is the revelation of the divine plan for humanity. Toward that evolution has been slowly, and often painfully, pressing from those dim æons when the earth was without form and void. When man appeared as the flower of all the cosmic process he started at once toward this goal. And with great modesty, and simply because I believe in God and that His love cannot be defeated, I dare to hope that, sometime and somehow, after all the pains of retribution and moral discipline have done their inevitable work, after all the fires of Gehenna have consumed the desire to sin, after Hades and Purgatory have been passed, the souls which, for a time, have dwelt in these mortal bodies, purified and without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, will be given the beatific vision and permitted to realize the height and depth, the length and breadth of "the fullness of Christ."
"That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows, Or decomposes but to recompose, Become my universe that feels and knows."
INDEX
Achilles, 74.
Actæon, 82.
Adam's fall, 142.
Adjustment to environment, 50, 52.
Adjustment to knowledge of freedom, 58.
Æschylus, 129.
Ambrose, 140.
Ancient Mariner, 295.
Angelo, Michael, 48, 182.
Animal entail, 79.
Arnold, Matthew, 72, 98, 226, 306.
Atmosphere in nurture, 215.
Attraction vs. Compulsion, 216.
Augustine, 34, 35, 140, 196, 199, 304.
Austere experiences, 97.
Awakening vs. Re-awakening, 147.
Bacon, Lord, 304.
Bernard, St., 90.
Books, The most vital, 229.
Browning, Robert, 26, 113, 129, 152, 238, 305, 314.
Browning, Mrs. E.B., 113.
Byron, Lord, 74.
Bunyan, John, 16.
Bushnell, Horace, 37.
Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, 220.
Cenci, Beatrice, 129.
Chatterton, 74.
Circe, 83.
Comforter, The, 205.
Companionship, Spiritual, 183.
Comus, 81, 92.
Conscience, 67, 187.
Conversion, 133.
Creationism, 11.
Crisis in Ascent of the Soul, 134.
Cross, The revelation of divine sacrifice, 175.
Culture, 212.
Culture, a study of perfection, 226.
Culture and life, 227.
Cultured man, The, 231.
Dante, 6.
Death, Light on, 176.
Death of the body, 239.
Diana, 82.
Donatello, 137.
DuBois-Reymond, 55.
Edinburgh, Incident in, 186.
Education, prophecy of soul's growth, 306.
Emerson, 214, 215, 306.
Emanation, 10.
Environment, Influence of, 218.
Environment, of what composed, 222.
Epictetus, 111.
Evolution and Immortality, 241.
Experience, Individual, 150.
Expiation, 155.
Falconer, Robert, 143.
Faust, 5, 35, 129.
Fetish worship, 245.
Fiske, John, 5.
Fliedner, Pastor, 220.
Freedom, Realization of, 54.
Galahad, Sir, 85.
Garrison, William Lloyd, 220.
God, Rational doctrine of, 157.
God revealed in Christ, 161.
God cannot be defeated, 136.
Goethe, 5.
Golden Age, 303.
Grace, Falling from, impossible, 145.
Grail, The Holy, 126.
Growth a means of knowledge, 61.
Guardian angels, 88, 201.
Guinevere, 129, 143, 144.
Hale, Nathan, 219.
Hamlet, 129.
Hannibal, 74.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 36, 137.
Helps in trial, 195.
Heredity, 56.
Heroism in silence, 198.
Hesperus, 2.
Hindu Swami, 64.
Hindu mother, 66.
Hindrances, Ministry of, 89.
History, Prophetic, 300.
Hope for all, 32.
Hugo, Victor, 36, 86.
Hunt, Holman, Light of the World, 163.
Ideals, Influence of, 218.
Ideal Man seen in Jesus Christ, 164.
Idylls of the King, 142.
Immortality, Ode to, Wordsworth, 10.
Immortality in the New Testament, 242.
Immortality in the ethnic religions, 242.
Immortality, belief in, innate, 244.
Immortality, belief in, universal, 245.
Immortality, unbelief in, irrational, 247.
Immortality and the great teachers, 252.
Inequalities in human condition, 249.
In Memoriam and Growth of the Soul, 295.
Intelligence, Growth in, prophetic, 292.
Isaiah, 142.
Jesus the Soul's goal, 310.
Jesus the Supreme Optimist, 169.
Judson, Adoniram, 137.
Kaiserwerth, 220.
Lanier, Sidney, 290.
Learning by experience should be unnecessary, 148.
Life the best teacher, 228.
Life, Unity of, 284.
Life's mystery illumined, 171.
Light of the World, Hunt's, 163.
Luther, Martin, 138.
Macbeth, 129.
Macdonald, George, 143.
Mahomet, 111.
Malthus, 118.
Man, light on his nature, 163.
Manhood, The ideal, 166.
Marble Faun, 137.
Marseillaise, The, 219.
Matthewson, Dr. Geo., 245.
Marguerite, 35.
Melchizedek, 133.
Milton, John, 82, 83, 92, 255.
Moral order, 51.
Morally excellent, the, how discern, 63.
Moral failure, 73, 129.
Moral evil inexplicable, 173.
More, Sir Thomas, 304.
Napoleon, 74.
Nelson, Lord, 220.
New College, Oxford, 70.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 202.
Ney, Marshal, 219.
Nightingale, Florence, 220.
Nurture, 211.
Nurture, part of parents in, 214.
Nurture, vitally important, 224, 225.
Optimism, 105.
Optimism, Rational basis of, 113.
Over-soul, 94, 184.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, 82.
Parents' duty to children, 149.
Pascal, 21.
Paul, 80.
Pearson, Bishop, 272.
Personality, 29, 270.
Pigmies, 293.
Pilgrim's Progress, 6.
Plato, 140.
Plan of salvation, 155.
Poe, Edgar A., 74.
Prayer, 276.
Prayers for the dead, objections, 269.
Prayers for the dead, definition, 270.
Prayers for the dead, how justified, 272.
Preëxistence, 10.
Prodigal Son, 27, 28.
Prometheus, 12.
Prophecy, 121.
Protestants and doctrine of prayers for the dead, 269.
Rabbi Ben Ezra, 305.
Re-awakening of the Soul, 130.
Re-awakening vs. Awakening, 147.
Responsibility, 30.
Resurrection of Christ, 14.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 79.
Ring and the Book, 129.
Roman Church and prayers for the dead, 282.
Sakya Muni, 199.
Santiago, 196.
Satisfaction, 155.
Saul, Browning's, 152.
Scarlet Letter, The, 137.
Self-realization, 31.
Shakespeare, 112, 129, 255.
Shelley, 74, 129.
Siddhartha, 111.
Sin always evil, 119.
Sin a reality, 127.
Sin, Mystery of, 172.
Socrates, 74, 111, 199, 253.
Sophocles, 129.
Soul, Solitary, 87.
Souls in society, 103.
Soul, what awakens, 34.
Soul, definition, 7.
Soul, origin, 9.
Soul, limited by body, 77.
Soul, full of prophecies, 257.
Spartans, 65.
Spirit evidence of being of God, 20.
Spiritual protection, 188.
Spirits attract spirits, 194.
Spirit, The Eternal, 206.
Spitta, Karl J.P., 210.
Subconscious action, 20.
Sympathy, definition, 106.
Sympathy, results from severe experience, 109.
Suffering no mistake, 116.
Suffering made endurable, 167.
Temptations of saints, 84.
Tennyson, 85, 113, 126, 129, 274.
Thoughts important in character, 230.
Training an element in nurture, 220.
Transfiguration of Christ, 14.
Truth, Search for, 191.
Truth finds those prepared for it, 269.
Ulysses, 83.
Universe, Moral, 93.
Universe, The idea of, 159.
Utopia, 304.
Vedas, Hymns of, 114.
Warning voices, 187.
Watch on the Rhine, 219.
Welldon, 273, 280, 281.
Whittier, John G., 220.
Wilberforce, William, 140, 220.
Wilson, Bishop, 226, 306.
Wingfold, Thomas, 143.
Wordsworth, 2, 10, 48, 182.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Ascent of the Soul, by Amory H. Bradford