To the pessimistic Indian accepting the Indian view of transmigration, it is therefore no gospel to preach the continuation of life, either here or hereafter. "To be born again" sounds like a penance to be endured. _Mukti_, commonly rendered _salvation_, is not regeneration Here and eternal life Hereafter; it is _deliverance_ from further lives altogether. If, however, we accept the statement that the value of human life in India is rising, that life is becoming worth living, and that the pessimistic mood is no ingrained fundamental trait, we are prepared to believe that the hopeful Christian conception of the Here and the Hereafter is finding acceptance. Rightly understood, the Christian conception is at bottom the antithesis of pessimism and its corollary, transmigration. To deny the one is almost to assert the other. The decay of the one is the growth of the other. For the Christian conception of the Here and the Hereafter--what is it? Life, eternal, in and through the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. "God gave unto us eternal life, and the life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the life."[110] Says Harnack in his volume _What is Christianity?_ "The Christian religion means one thing, and one thing only--eternal life in the midst of time by the strength and under the eyes of God." Not that the new idea in India is to be wholly ascribed to Christian influence. A marked change in Christian thought itself during the nineteenth century has been the higher value of this present life. Christianity has become a vitalising gospel for the life Here even more than for the Hereafter. But assuming the truth of what we have sought to show, namely, that within the past century the winning personality of Christ has come to New India, a new incentive to noble life and service, we have at least a further reason for believing that pessimism and transmigration are fading out of Indian minds. The new Advent, as that at Bethlehem, is a turning-point of time; the gloomy winter of pessimism is turning to a hopeful spring. CHAPTER XVIII INDIAN TRANSMIGRATION AND THE CHRISTIAN HERE AND HEREAFTER "The dew is on the lotus. Rise, good sun! And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave. The sunrise comes! The dewdrop slips into the shining sea. If any teach Nirvana is to cease, Say unto such they lie. If any teach Nirvana is to live, Say unto such they err." (Buddha's teaching in Arnold's _Light of Asia_.) [Sidenote: Over against Transmigration, Christian immortality is continuity of the individual's memory.]