Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/115

Rh sense, a living soul. His first beginnings of religous life were mere spiritual vegetation, a state in which he possesses no consciousness of the Lord as the life of all that is true and good within him, just as natural vegetation has no consciousness whatever of the life that makes it lovely. But in the advanced stage to which I now refer all this is changed. He feels a consciousness that all his life—that all his truth and goodness, is but the Lord's influence within him, just as the things of animate creation—the beasts and birds—move on in the conscious enjoyment of the physical life they possess.

This is not a difficult thought to grasp even though one may not have arrived at so high a state. We well know how common it is to move along through life just as though there were no living soul of God within it. We buy, we sell, we sing, we dance, we hold social converse, we perform religious acts, just as though we did it all. Yet the very blood is coursing through our veins, the heart is beating in rythmic cadence, breath comes and goes with each expansion and contraction of the lungs, without a conscious effort of our own; for there is a life within and behind it all which works away, with no consultation on the subject with our thought and will. In mental life it is the same. The mind works on and man has not the power to stop it. He may lead it, guide it, but even a self-inflicted bullet