Life eternal is there defined, not with reference to a future state, but as the knowledge of God, the beginnings of which are attainable here and now, by present service and self-devotion: to him who should do the will should the doctrine be made known.[99] The record of the intercourse between the Master and His disciples during the forty days following the resurrection is silent concerning any lifting of the veil before which they so consciously stood. That Browning was a Christian in the broadest, deepest, and possibly in the least conventional acceptation of the term, it was the attempt of the last Lecture to demonstrate by a consideration of the dramatic poems bearing reference to Christianity and its relation to human life. And there is no word throughout _La Saisiaz_ which should preclude belief in the conclusions of David in _Saul_ or of St. John in _A Death in the Desert_. To the man who was "very sure of God"--who had recognized the Divine revelation in Nature--an acceptance of the more immediate and special revelation was but a natural sequence. "Ye believe in God, believe also in me":[100] when the assertion holds good the command is not difficult of fulfilment. Whilst extreme caution is necessary in dealing with a matter in which the student is too readily tempted to "find what he desires to find," the historical and logical necessity for an Incarnation was, as we have seen, so favourite a theme with Browning for dramatic treatment, that it is wellnigh impossible to dissociate the personal interest. This subject the reflections of _La Saisiaz_ do not directly approach. He at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God. The creed so expressed meant for the author a gain, once experienced, too great to remain unshared. No mere abstract belief, but an assurance of which he could assert Fact it is I know I know not something which is fact as much. (l. 224.) For him the power and the purpose which he beheld, "if no one else beheld," ruling in Nature and in human life were alike Love. The last word on the subject comes to us direct, unmodified by any dramatic medium-- Power is Love-- * * * * From the first, Power was--I knew. Life has made clear to me That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see. When see? Where there dawns a day, If not on the homely earth, Then yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, And Power comes full in play.[101] The hope of _La Saisiaz_ has become the assurance of the _Reverie_.