Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/40

36 within us. This is called by our Lord, the rebirth, or regeneration.

Regeneration is not a mysterious term; it is simply the development of the spiritual nature. As infants we are born entirely natural. At that period we are without any knowledge of any kind. Our very natural senses have to be developed. We learn to distinguish objects one from another, to form sounds into words of sense, to walk, to talk, only by slow degrees of development. Our rationality is unfolded by a still slower process. It takes us eighteen or twenty years to become women or men, either in stature, wisdom, or rationality,

But having thus learned to be natural men, we have still to learn to become spiritual men. This also is a slow development. Many never develop on to the spiritual plane at all. We have learned to comprehend earthly things; we have still to learn to comprehend spiritual things. For this, however, we study no worldly history or science. For this we go to the Word of God. There, this, and this only, is designed to be taught. There we learn to comprehend the Supreme Being, so far as the finite mind can. God, who has hitherto been to us but a name, becomes, for the first time now, a revealed reality. We begin to look to Him, to love Him and to study Him. We study the life which He would have us lead, the spiritual objects and