Page:Natural Phenomena and their Spiritual Lessons.djvu/21

Rh is neither an object of disgust nor contempt. The exercise of its indiscriminate voracity is a simple fulfilling of its insect duty. Its business on earth is to eat and grow, and fit itself for its approaching transformation; and its devotion to this end points to corresponding efforts to attain a certain necessary fulness of state in the natural mind before regeneration can commence. This is effected not by the mere impletion of the original form, but by generating within it another, which in due season will expel the former and replace it;—a process repeated several times in succession till maturity is attained. Manhood is preceded by infancy, childhood, boyhood, and youth. The infant is merely corporeal. In childhood the senses are fully developed; and some acquaintance with the world around is imbibed unsought, at every avenue opened by them to the mind within. The boy actively and eagerly accumulates knowledge; the youth reasons and concludes, and so advances towards the complete rationality of manhood. Each of these states has modes of affection and forms of thought, speech, and action peculiar to itself, that have to be laid aside as the higher stage is reached. The infant, gifted with innocence which pervades every movement, glides unconsciously and sweetly into the child; but the other changes are made with increasing self-consciousness and proportional loss of grace; while the last, —the transition from youth to manhood,—is often accompanied by a degree of awkwardness painful to the subject of it, and of assumption offensive to his companions. Even these features have their analogies in the insect. It also experiences difficulty in extricating itself from the old garment, and remains in an uneasy condition till the