we had hope in Christ.

But when this comforting and inspiring thought is made to form the
basis of a new Chiliasm--a belief in a millennium of perfected
humanity on this earth, and when this belief is substituted for the
Christian belief in an eternal life beyond our bourne of time and
place, it is necessary to protest that this belief entirely fails to
satisfy the legitimate hopes of the human race, that it is bad
philosophy, and that it is flatly contrary to what science tells us of
the destiny of the world and of mankind. The human spirit beats
against the bars of space and time themselves, and could never be
satisfied with any earthly utopia. Our true home must be in some
higher sphere of existence, above the contradictions which make it
impossible for us to believe that time and space are ultimate
realities, and out of reach of the inevitable catastrophe which the
next glacial age must bring upon the human race.[406] This world of
space and time is to resemble heaven as far as it can; but a fixed
limit is set to the amount of the Divine plan which can be realised
under these conditions. Our hearts tell us of a higher form of
existence, in which the doom of death is not merely deferred but
abolished. This eternal world we here see through a glass darkly: at
best we can apprehend but the outskirts of God's ways, and hear a
small whisper of His voice; but our conviction is that, though our
earthly house be dissolved (as dissolved it must be), we have a home
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. In this hope we may
include all creation; and trust that in some way neither more nor less
incomprehensible than the deliverance which we expect for ourselves,
all God's creatures, according to their several capacities, may be set
free from the bondage of corruption and participate in the final
triumph over death and sin. Most firmly do I believe that this faith
in immortality, though formless and inpalpable as the air we breathe,
and incapable of definite presentation except under inadequate and
self-contradictory symbols, is nevertheless enthroned in the centre of
our being, and that those who have steadily set their affections on
things above, and lived the risen life even on earth, receive in
themselves an assurance which robs death of its sting, and is an
earnest of a final victory over the grave.

It is not claimed that Mysticism, even in its widest sense, is, or can
ever be, the whole of Christianity. Every rel