Page:Natural Phenomena and their Spiritual Lessons.djvu/17

Rh a chosen mate it flits from flower to flower, in colours bright as they;

and enjoys in its progeny an imitation of the immortality it typifies.

These particulars illustrate in a remarkable, though general manner, the difference between man's earthly and heavenly life. The first is limited in all directions by time and space, and is subject to numerous imperfections. It gravitates towards the earth by the mere weight of the animal nature and the urgency of its necessities; and, when to these are added its many infirmities, and its liability to disease and pain, heavy indeed is the burden it sometimes may become. Then, on the next plane of natural life is the pressure of domestic, social, and national cares and anxieties; and the inadequacy of man's mental and instrumental powers to the extent and strength of his desires. But in the heavenly state these limitations and imperfections disappear, being laid aside with the body in which they inhere. No longer blunted by materiality, the spiritual senses possess increased susceptibility and acuteness; while, from their harmonious relations with the world in which they are exercised, they are sources only of use and delight, never of pain or annoyance. The affectuous and intellectual faculties, also, being there not only perfectly united, but such as are instrumental in due proportion to the impulsive and the deliberative; and the lower subordinate to the higher; the result of this felicitous balance of powers is the absence of unavailing wishes and futile effort,—angelic desires never transcending the limits of attainment.