Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/134

130 passing from every earth of this immeasurable universe of planetary spheres into the infinite world beyond. The grandeur of the thought is overwhelming. And in every time of illimitable space and in every state of each one's life in all these worlds, into the universe of nature and into that of spirit, these Divine activities are flowing, creating, sustaining, developing, recreating.

God is, therefore, not a self-glorifying Being. His happiness is in his goings forth for others, not in the contemplation of his own greatness. If we, then, are actuated by his Spirit, our happiness is never in self-satisfaction. Sanctification in any such sense is a delusion and a snare. The more we forget ourselves in our energies of use in the field of our surroundings, the more we work in the spirit of the Lord. The essence of the religion of the Scriptures, under New-Church interpretation, is altruism not egoism. And of all forms of egoism that which claims the highest seat in the synagogue of the Lord is the shabbiest and the worst, and the very one which was most condemned of Christ.

We are, in our reflections upon this parable of regeneration, approaching its highest point. It is well that we should not misunderstand its character, nor mingle it with the crude misconceptions of the day. I repeat, thus, that in the highest stage of regeneration, the Lord becomes the enthroned life, soul, and