should also have the conditions for Eternal Life fulfilled. But what if
the Environment passed away altogether? What if the earth swept suddenly
into the sun? This is a change of Environment against which there could
be no precaution and for which there could be as little provision. With
a changing Environment even, there must always remain the dread and
possibility of a falling out of correspondence. At the best, Life would
be uncertain. But with a changeless Environment--such as that possessed
by the spiritual organism--the perpetuity of the correspondence, so far
as the external relation is concerned, is guaranteed. This quality of
permanence in the Environment distinguishes the religious relation from
every other. Why should not the musician's life be an Eternal Life?
Because, for one thing, the musical world, the Environment with which he
corresponds, is not eternal. Even if his correspondence in itself could
last, eternally, the environing material things with which he
corresponds must pass away. His soul might last forever--but not his
violin. So the man of the world might last forever--but not the world.
His Environment is not eternal; nor are even his correspondences--the
world passeth away _and the lust thereof_.

We find then that man, or the spiritual man, is equipped with two sets
of correspondences. One set possesses the quality of everlastingness,
the other is temporal. But unless these are separated by some means the
temporal will continue to impair and hinder the eternal. The final
preparation, therefore, for the inheriting of Eternal Life must consist
in the abandonment of the non-eternal elements. These must be unloosed
and dissociated from the higher elements. And this is effected by a
closing catastrophe--Death.

Death ensues because certain relations in the organism are not adjusted
to certain relations in the Environment. There will come a time in each
history when the imperfect correspondences of the organism will betray
themselves by a failure to compass some necessary adjustment. This is
why Death is associated with Imperfection. Death is the necessary result
of Imperfection, and the necessary end of it. Imperfect correspondence
gives imperfect and uncertain Life. "Perfect correspondence," on the
other hand, according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, would be "perfect Life."
To abolish Death, therefore, all that would be necessary would be to
abolish Imperfection. But it is the claim of Christianity th