me forth within us and that stands in relation to a higher
governance of things in a future world where nothing perishes that
has been done in God. Thus, for instance, the apostles and the first
Christians generally, even while living, were wholly transported
above the earth because of their belief in heaven; and affairs
terrestrial--state, fatherland, and nation--were so entirely renounced
that they no longer deemed such trivial concerns worthy even of their
consideration. However possible this may be, however easy, moreover,
for faith, and however joyfully we may resign ourselves to the
conviction, since it is unalterably the will of God, that we have
no more an earthly country but are exiles and slaves here
below--nevertheless, this is not the natural condition and the rule
governing the course of the world, but is a rare exception. Moreover,
it is a very perverse use of religion (and, among others, Christianity
has frequently been guilty of it) when, as a question of principle and
without regard to the existent circumstances, it proceeds to commend
this withdrawal from the affairs of the state and of the nation as a
truly religious sentiment. Under such conditions, if they are true and
real and not perhaps induced merely by religious fanaticism, temporal
life loses all its independence and becomes simply a fore-court of
the true life and a hard trial to be borne only by obedience and
submission to the will of God; in this view it becomes true that,
as has been claimed by many, immortal souls have been plunged into
earthly bodies, as into prisons, simply as a punishment. In the
regular order of things, however, earthly life should itself truly be
life in which we may rejoice and which we may thankfully enjoy, even
though in expectation of a higher life; and although it is true that
religion is also the comfort of the slave illegally oppressed, yet,
above all things, the essence of religion is to oppose slavery and to
prevent, so far as possible, its deterioration to a mere consolation
of the captive. It is doubtless to the interest of the tyrant to
preach religious resignation and to refer to heaven those to whom he
will not grant a tiny place on earth; we must, however, be less hasty
to adopt the view of religion recommended by the tyrant, for, if
we can, we must forestall the making of earth into hell in order to
arouse a still greater longing for heaven.

The natural impulse of man, to be surrendered only in case