"The question then would be whether it could not be made such."

"You are right.--And wherein consists the essential inherent
worthiness of a life as life?--The only perfect idea of life is--a
unit, self-existent, and creative. That is God, the only one. But to
this idea, in its kind, must every life, to be complete as life,
correspond; and the human correspondence to self-existence is, that
the man should round and complete himself by taking into himself
that origin; by going back and in his own will adopting his origin,
rooting therein afresh in the exercise of his own freedom and in all
the energy of his own self-roused will; in other words--that the man
say "I will be after the will of the creating _I_;" that he see and
say with his whole being that to will the will of God in himself and
for himself and concerning himself, is the highest possible
condition of a man. Then has he completed his cycle by turning back
upon his history, laying hold of his cause, and willing his own
being in the will of the only I AM. This is the rounding,
re-creating, unifying of the man. This is religion, and all that
gathers not with this, scatters abroad."

"And then," said Drew, with some eagerness, "lawfully comes the
question, 'Shall I, or shall I not live for ever?'"

"Pardon me; I think not," returned the little prophet. "I think
rather we have done with it for ever. The man with life so in
himself, will not dream of asking whether he shall live. It is only
in the twilight of a half-life, holding in it at once much wherefore
it should desire its own continuance, and much that renders it
unworthy of continuance, that the doubtful desire of immortality can
arise.--Do you remember"--here Polwarth turned to Wingfold--"my