soteriology, it must have felt to them to scan the endowments and enjoyments already in their possession as veritable precursors of the inheritance outstanding. All the more was this natural, because theirs was a most vivid realization of the comparative importance of the two, such as would inevitably make the future entitled to the prime place in the scale of values. So far, however, all this, while creating a strong presumption in favor of our thesis, is of an a priori nature. It will be necessary