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THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
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closest family ties would involve many a difficulty. There are plenty of men who would gladly sacrifice all the glories of the paradise if it meant the eternal companionship of their better hall' and the mother-in-law. It is more than questionable whether Henry VIII would like the prospect of living eternally with his six wives; or Augustus, the Strong of Poland, who had a hundred mistresses and three hundred and fifty-two children."-(Haeckel).
. What can athanatism gain by the soul unless it retain its worldly personality, for according to its views all conditions minus the physical personality would be equal to annihilation ? And, yet, a personality born of evil deeds and infamous actions cannot, by any means, be regarded as anything worth preserving. One can hardly go the length of saying that all unwholesome traits would be wiped out, leaving only the pleasant and agreeable traces of the physical life adhering to the ego in resurrection. And, if this be so, one of two things must happen-either heaven itself must become hellish for the individual, or he must be turned out to undergo the sorrowful experiences and sensations which arise from evil thoughts and inclinations, elsewhere. In this connection, another question suggests itself to the enquiring mind, and it is: in what state of development will the individuals rise up and pass their eternal life? Will there be the same varieties of development in the other world as there are here? Will the child in arms never develop its latent psychic powers? Will the feeble, childish old man who has filled the world with the fame of his deeds in the ripeness of his age live for ever in mental decay? But the Theist has no answer to these and other similar questions.
The idea of an eternal punishment or reward, if
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