such a flood of light that they must have perceived
how entirely they had misapprehended the teachings
of Christianity. He sought diligently to instruct them,
and thus to convert them to the truth. If we are
clearly to understand why the Apostle wrote as he
did, — why thus and not otherwise, — it is necessary
to acquaint ourselves with the views of the body
and its relation to the soul held by the men of that
day. That which men believed was coming to them
with the Messiah was chiefly a regenerated condition
of society; a new kingdom — a new order of things
— prosperity and purity. Many persons came into
the Christian Church with that hope. But more than
this, these persons had certain views and opinions
as to the cause of evil. They associated it with the
material body. To be liberated from the body was
everything. When any one spake of "resurrection
of a body," they could not accept it, because in this
flesh and blood, so they assumed, dwelt all the evil
to which they were subject. And so they were in
danger of what we may call an ultra-spiritualism,
which ultra-spiritualism naturally runs into antino-
mianism and asceticism, with other evil conditions.
