pirit."

To show further that this protoplasm possesses the necessary properties
of a normal protoplasm it will be necessary to examine in passing what
these properties are. They are two in number, the capacity for life and
plasticity. Consider first the capacity for life. It is not enough to
find an adequate supply of material. That must be of the right kind. For
all kinds of matter have not the power to be the vehicle of life--all
kinds of matter are not even fitted to be the vehicle of electricity.
What peculiarity there is in Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen,
when combined in a certain way, to receive life, we cannot tell. We only
know that life is always associated in Nature with this particular
physical basis and never with any other. But we are not in the same
darkness with regard to the moral protoplasm. When we look at this
complex combination which we have predicted as the basis of spiritual
life, we do find something which gives it a peculiar qualification for
being the protoplasm of the Christ-Life. We discover one strong reason
at least, not only why this kind of life should be associated with this
kind of protoplasm, but why it should never be associated with other
kinds which seem to resemble it--why, for instance, this spiritual life
should not be engrafted upon the intelligence of a dog or the instincts
of an ant.

The protoplasm in man has a something in addition to its instincts or
its habits. It has a capacity for God. In this capacity for God lies its
receptivity; it is the very protoplasm that was necessary. The chamber
is not only ready to receive the new Life, but the Guest is expected,
and, till He comes, is missed. Till then the soul longs and yearns,
wastes and pines, waving its tentacles piteously in the empty air,
feeling after God if so be that it may find Him. This is not peculiar to
the protoplasm of the Christian's soul. In every land and in every age
there have been altars to the Known or Unknown God. It is now agreed as
a mere question of anthropology that the universal language of the human
soul has always been "I perish with hunger." This is what fits it for
Christ. There is a grandeur in this cry from the depths which makes its
very unhappiness sublime.

The other quality we are to look for in the soul is mouldableness,
plasticity. Conformity demands conformability. Now plasticity is not
only a marked characteristic of all forms of life, but in a special
sense of the highes