It is especially with regard to the spiritual consciousness of man, and of man's participation in the divine government of life, that the doctrine of Christ controverts the idea of suffering as an evil. In His verbal teaching, and in His rite of communion established as a symbolic epitome of His spiritual convictions, there is a clear acknowledgment of the fundamental unity of Nature—a basic point of argument which is also adopted to-day by every scientist in all departments of research. Christ laid particular emphasis upon the spiritual unity of man with God, He Himself speaking as a son of God—a manifestation of the divine Spirit of Life. He urged the following of His example upon His disciples, trying to open the blind eyes and deaf ears of men who had as yet so imperfect an understanding of spiritual things. He tried to teach them to look at life from His point of view. Did He not regard the son of man as the expression of[79] God, recognition of which spiritual truth gave Him, as it can give to all, assurance of eternal life? The Spirit of Life which is in every man cannot die, for it is part of God, who is Life without beginning and without end. Only the expression or medium of spirit, only the finite form, is mortal. Spirit is infinite and immortal. Such sayings as the following, attributed to Christ and His disciples, are expressive of the relation of man to God, and each may be seen to form a logical corollary of the other:— "I and my Father are one" (St John x. 30). This is the simple summary of Christ's conviction of fundamental union between the Spirit of Life, God, and manifested being. "My Father is greater than I" (St John xiv. 28) expresses the fact that the Spirit of Life as a whole is greater than its manifested parts, although those parts are contained by the whole and are at one with the whole. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"[80] (St John xiv. 9). Here Christ speaks of Himself as a manifested part of the Spirit of Life, in which sense every man can see in his fellow-creatures the same manifested Spirit, who is God. He who looks at the son of man as the incarnate Son of God is following the example of Christ, who taught the brotherhood of man. "No man hath seen God at any time" (St John i. 18)—shows the futility of imagining it possible to confine the supreme Spirit of Life in any one form at any one period of time. All form is manifested Spirit, but the Spirit of Life is not only in all, but over all. The following, among very many other sayings, are also susceptible of the same interpretation:— "I came from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father" (St John xvi. 28). "As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself" (St John v. 26). [81]