Likewise, hope, deeply affected by modern ideas of earthly progress, is not primarily post-mortem, as it used to be. Men believe in immortality, but it seems so naturally the continuance of this present life that their responsible concern is chiefly centered here. The hopes which waken immediate enthusiasm and stir spontaneous response are hopes of righteousness victorious upon the earth. Because men believe in God, they believe that he has great purposes for humankind. The course of human history is like a river: sometimes it flows so slowly that one would hardly know it moved at all; sometimes bends come in its channel so that one can hardly see in what direction it intends to go; sometimes there are back-eddies so that it seems to be retreating on itself. If a man has no spiritual interpretation of life, if he does not believe in God, he may well give up hope and conclude that the human river is flowing all awry or has altogether ceased to move. A Christian, however, has a spiritual interpretation of life. He knows that human history is a river--not a whirlpool, nor a pond, but a river flowing to its end. Just as, far inland, we can tell that the Hudson is flowing to the sea, because the waters, when the tide comes in, are tinctured with the ocean's quality, so now, we believe that we can tell that the river of human history is flowing out toward the kingdom of our God. Already the setback of the divine ocean is felt among us in ideals of better life, personal, social, economic, national. That it is Christianity's function to believe in these ideals, to have faith in the possibility of their realization, to supply motives for their achievement, and to work for them with courage and sacrifice, is the familiar note of modern Christian hope.