Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/114

110 vegetation created on the third day; but the higher state, when one is conscious of all his truth as the light of God and of all his goodness as the influence of the Lord, is described and represented by the living soul which the waters brought forth.

For our present purpose, I prefer the exactly literal translation of the original Hebrew given by Swedenborg to that of the authorized version. In the latter it reads, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life." But the accurate rendering is, to give in English the precise force of the Hebrew words, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the creeping thing, the living soul." It is this term, "living soul," which gives force and point to the idea. The regenerating individual becomes now, in this stage of progress, a truly living soul. In a certain sense, vegetation, indeed, has life, but it is an utterly unconscious life. It represents, in a happy manner, one's first efforts at good action, because he is unconscious of the Lord's presence in those first efforts. They are not truly and spiritually alive, because the conscious feeling is that their motive springs originate in himself. The Lord's higher influence is not at all perceptible in them.

But when the man essays to speak and think from a genuine faith, and to will and act from real love, he then begins to be, in an elevated spiritual