The Christian hope is also the hope of immortality; and just now the reality and power of this hope are put to the test. Paul, who knew how far Judaism had gone toward faith in the eternal life of the spirit, testifies that it was only as a Christian and because of Christ that this hope had become to him a certainty, almost a present experience. The nature of God as Christ knew him, and the nature of man's sonship to God, carry immortality with them as an inward and immediate assurance. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Here again the Christian religion has an opportunity and an obligation in times of war. Men are seeking assurance of life to come for those who have given their lives for human right and liberty. It is not to be desired that this pressing religious need of our day should turn to physical evidences, to messages from the dead through abnormal experiences and dubious agencies. The Christian faith in immortality is to be experienced as faith in the God who loves as a father, and who gives as love must give his best to his children. If God is love, then our love does not deceive us. If God is spirit, then our spirits are from God and will return to him. If the soul, the person, is of supreme worth and reality, then it will not be involved in the body's destruction, nor lost as a drop in the ocean or as a breath in the wind, either in the divine being from whom it came, or in the human race, "the beloved community," to which its service is given. It is perhaps in the relation to each other of the hope for a new human brotherhood and the hope for the life of the soul with God, that the distinction and preëminence of the religion of Jesus come most clearly to light. He feels no need of sacrificing one to the other, but holds his hope for this world and the oneness of men in love side by side with the hope for the other world. He does call upon individuals to give their lives in ministry to others, but in the losing of life he declares that life is gained. Paradoxes express his faith and insight, and the nature of love in God and in man brings with it the key to the solution of the paradox.