g's creed concerning man. He is "for
aye removed from the developed brute," and is "a god in the germ."
Browning holds that while in the future there will surely be expansion
of soul, evolution as a physical process is at an end. Henceforward
there will be no passing from one species to another. Species have to do
with physical organisms, not with spirits. Soul in man is but God "in
the germ."

Emerson and Matthew Arnold have written much about education. The one
foretells a day when the soul, after mounting and meliorating, finds
that even the hells are turned into benefit; and the other makes his own
the thought of Bishop Wilson that culture is a study of perfection, and
that the soul must ever seek increased life, increased light, and
increased power.

Education is the word of the hour and of the century. It is believed to
be the panacea for all ills, individual and social. But, precisely, what
does this passion for education signify if not that, either
intelligently or otherwise, all believe in the perfectibility of the
soul, and that it will have all the time that it needs for the process.
The absorbing devotion to intellectual training suggests the inquiry as
to whether many who affirm that they are agnostic concerning immortality
are not in reality earnest in their faith; for why should they seek the
culture of that which fades, as the flowers fade; when it approaches
life's winter? But, whether faith in continuance of being is firm or
frail, few doubt the perfectibility of spirit, because, beyond almost
all things, they are seeking its perfection. Literature, which is but
the thoughts of the great souls of successive periods recorded,
prophesies a day when all that hinders or taints shall be done away, and
when the divine in the germ shall have grown to large and fair
proportions. If there were no other light the outlook would still be
inspiring. It is well sometimes to ask ourselves what we were made to
be--not these bodies which are clearly decaying--but these spirits
which seem to grow younger with the passage of time. I have sometimes
thought that the very idea of second childhood is itself a prophecy of
the soul's eternal youth. Certain it is that we are the masters of the
years. The oldest persons that we know are usually the youngest in their
sympathies and ideals. Sorrow and opposition should not destroy, but
only strengthen the spiritual powers. Intelligence grows from more to
more. The sure reward of