173
nal doom. Is the world beyond the grave so barren of growing life, or is the 'ethereal spark' in us so helplessly dependent upon a fleshly cover, that, banished its heavenly abode, it must inevitably and repeatedly enter a "darksome house of mortal clay" for any progress in wisdom and holiness to be possible? Are the post-sepulchral regions utterly foreign to refined aspirations and sublime activities? Is the final goal of man, after all, sheer inactivity—a dormancy disturbed by no dream? That, we think, is the only legitimate inference from the theory that an unembodied soul is incapable of progress or growth. But the very significant modification of the orthodox conception introduced in the reincarnation theory by our brethren of the Arya Samaj and the Theosophical Society is, to our mind, suggestive of the belief that the spirit perpetually rises, on the stepping-stone of the dead self, to higher things. Ours, therefore, is the faith, which is in per feet consonance with the prof oundest intuitions
