Chapter XIII: Part II (10)

The broad impression gathered from the utterances of the Founder of the Spiritual Kingdom is that the number of organisms to be included in it is to be comparatively small. The outstanding characteristic of the new Society is to be its selectness. "Many are called," said Christ, "but few are chosen." And when one recalls, on the one hand, the conditions of membership, and, on the other, observes the lives and aspirations of average men, the force of the verdict becomes apparent. In its bearing upon the general question, such a conclusion is not without suggestiveness. Here again is another evidence of the radical nature of Christianity. That "few are chosen" indicates a deeper view of the relation of Christ's Kingdom to the world, and stricter qualifications of membership, than lie on the surface or are allowed for in the ordinary practice of religion.

The analogy of Nature upon this point is not less striking--it may be added, not less solemn. It is an open secret, to be read in a hundred analogies from the world around, that of the millions of possible entrants for advancement in any department of Nature the number ultimately selected for preferment is small. Here also "many are called and few are chosen." The analogies from the waste of seed, of pollen, of human lives, are too familiar to be quoted. In certain details, possibly, these comparisons are inappropriate. But there are other analogies, wider and more just, which strike deeper into the system of Nature. A comprehensive view of the whole field of Nature discloses the fact that the circle of the chosen slowly contracts as we rise in the scale of being. Some mineral, but not all, becomes vegetable; some vegetable, but not all, becomes animal; some animal, but not all, becomes human; some human, but not all, becomes Divine. Thus the area narrows. At the base is the mineral, most broad and simple; the spiritual at the apex, smallest, but most highly differentiated. So form rises above form, Kingdom above Kingdom. _Quantity decreases as quality increases._

The gravitation of the whole system of nature toward quality is surely a phenomenon of commanding interest. And if among the more recent revelations of Nature there is one thing more significant for religion than another, it is the majestic spectacle of the rise of Kingdoms toward scarcer yet nobler forms, and simpler yet diviner ends. Of the early stage, the first development of the earth from the nebulous matrix of space, Science speaks with reserve. The second, the evolution of each individual from the simple protoplasmic cell to the formed adult, is proved. The still wider evolution, not of solitary individuals, but of all the individuals within each province--in the vegetal world from the unicellular cryptogam to the highest phanerogam, in the animal world from the amorphous am[oe]ba to Man--is at least suspected, the gradual rise of types being at all events a fact. But now, at last, we see the Kingdoms themselves evolving. And that supreme law which has guided the development from simple to complex in matter, in individual, in sub-Kingdom, and in Kingdom, until only two or three great Kingdoms remain, now begins at the beginning again, directing the evolution of these million-peopled worlds as if they were simple cells or organisms. Thus, what applies to the individual applies to the family, what applies to the family applies to the Kingdom, what applies to the Kingdom applies to the Kingdoms. And so, out of the infinite complexity there rises an infinite simplicity, the foreshadowing of a final unity, of that

"One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves."[100]

This is the final triumph of Continuity, the heart secret of Creation, the unspoken prophecy of Christianity. To Science, defining it as a working principle, this mighty process of amelioration is simply _Evolution_. To Christianity, discerning the end through the means, it is _Redemption_. These silent and patient processes, elaborating, eliminating, developing all from the first of time, conducting the evolution from millennium to millennium with unaltering purpose and unfaltering power, are the early stages in the redemptive work--the unseen approach of that Kingdom whose strange mark is that it "cometh without observation." And these Kingdoms rising tier above tier in ever increasing sublimity and beauty, their foundations visibly fixed in the past, their progress, and the direction of their progress, being facts in Nature still, are the signs which, since the Magi saw His star in the East, have never been wanting from the firmament of truth, and which in every age with growing clearness to the wise, and with ever-gathering mystery to the uninitiated, proclaim that "the Kingdom of God is at hand."

FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] "Principles of Biology," p. 294.

[97] "Principles of Biology," vol. ii. pp. 222, 223.

[98] Philosophical classifications in this direction (see for instance Godet's "Old Testament Studies," pp. 2-40), owing to their neglect of the facts of Biogenesis can never satisfy the biologist--any more than the above will wholly satisfy the philosopher. Both are needed. Rothe, in his "Aphorisms," strikingly notes one point: "Es ist beachtenswerth, wie in der Schoepfung immer aus der Aufloesung der naechst neideren Stufe die naechst hoehere hervorgeht, so dass jene immer das Substrat zur Erzeugung dieser Kraft der schoepferischen Einwirkung bildet. (Wie es denn nicht anders sein kann bei einer Entwicklung der Kreatur aus sich selbst.) Aus den zersetzten Elementen erheben sich das Mineral, aus dem verwitterten Material die Pflanze, aus der verwesten Pflanze das Thier. So erhebt sich auch aus dem in die Elemente zuruecksinkenden Materiellen Menschen der Geist, das geistige Geschoepf."--"Stille Stunden," p. 64.

[99] "First Principles," p. 440.

[100] "In Memoriam."

Transcriber's Endnote:

Two significant typographical errors have been corrected in the
Greek text on Page 263. The sentence originally read:

"And Paul afterward carries out the classification consistently,
making his entire system depend on it, and throughout arranging
men, on the one hand as {pyenmatikos}--spiritual, on the other
as {phychikos}--carnal, in terms of Christ's distinction."

The amended text replaces {pyenmatikos} with {pneumatikos}, whilst
{phychikos} now reads as {psychikos}.