Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/147

Rh green herb is a lower form of food than the herb yielding seed. The term green conveys the idea of unripeness and lack of maturity. All phases of mind and life and duty have their food, their sustaining truths suited to their form and kind. The higher the phase the more spiritually mature the food, the lower the phase, the more spiritually crude.

Well, we have come to the end of the description of the sixth state of regeneration, as set forth in the parable of creation. The regenerating individual has developed into a true spiritual manhood. The Lord has done the work all the way through; the man has only co-operated. Therefore the expression "And God made" is always used. The idea is not difficult to gain. It is like the case of a diligent gardener. He knows that it is the sun and rain which really causes his plants to come to perfection. Yet he digs, and weeds, and prunes, and trains, and waters. Without his co-operation the garden would have remained in a sorry state indeed. He recognizes that his co-operative work is necessary; but he does not pretend to claim that he has made the plants grow, when he knows so well, that the sun and rain and dew performed the work.

Thus it is with man. As a cultivator of the garden of his own mind, he must weed out his propensities to evil, loosen the soil of his naturally hard