On the other hand, Nirvana is the word which holds condensed the whole realm of Buddha's ideals. It is not my purpose to discuss the original meaning of this word. I gladly concede that it meant a state of moral achievement when the powers of the soul were at equilibrium and when resultant peace pervaded the life. But we also know that it meant, preeminently, that state in which the soul had passed beyond contact with body, in which contact alone it found consciousness and sensation and human activity; when the soul, freed from births, had returned to its elemental condition of semi-nothingness, with neither thought, emotion, nor volition. This was a condition in which was found only the negative blessing of release from the turbulence and surging distresses of life. Without calling it non-existence, we claim that it is wanting in every element that we connect, or can conceive connected, with human existence. There is nothing in it to inspire hope nor to invite cheer. All we can do in its presence is to ask--is this all that man, the flower of God's universe, is to arrive at? Is there nothing better for him than to end his long, dreary existence in such an abject failure? Must he descend from the plain of even a wretched human life to this the lowest reach of existence, if such we must call it? In the eyes of Christ, there issues out of the mighty conflict of life a purified, glorified human being fit to dwell forever in the presence of His Father and adopted to enjoy that presence for evermore. To Buddha, this same human life ends in failure and must rest forever under the dark pall of oblivion, and robbed by Nirvana of all the possibilities of good and of joy that were implanted in it. In the absence of higher satisfaction, all that Buddha could do was to glory in his achievements, because of their pervasive influence upon the lives of others during all future time. We might imagine him joining with George Eliot in her noble aspiration:-- "O! may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the nightlike stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues ... This is life to come." But Christ gave us a larger hope and a loftier purpose than this, even the conscious possession of abundant life ourselves and the growing knowledge of the boundless good which our earthly life has done for others. To live in men is joy indeed; but that involves an ability to feel that joy; and this, again, is a part only of the Eternal Life which He gives to all who believe in Him. It is His disciple only who can say:-- "Beloved, now are we the Sons of God. But we know not what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."