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And so on through every degree, from the lowest depths of ignorance to the greatest heights of intelligence, a man's life must always be the exact reflection of that particular stage which he has reached in the perception of the divine nature and of his own relation to it; and as we approach the full perception of Truth, so the life-principle within us expands, the old bonds and limitations which had no existence in reality fall off from us, and we enter into regions of light, liberty, and power, of which we had previously no conception.
Though subject to accident and variation, however, every tree exhibits a characteristic, inviolate tendency, and remains true to the inner life-principle of its being. The "truth" of the apple tree is this distinctive, essential form, by virtue of which it is an apple tree and not some other kind, the form which underlies and allows for all individual variations.
It is the result of apprehension and misapprehension, and bred of race-fear. The strong spirit would have put forth a strong frame if we had given it a chance. Abundant life must be life, healthy, active, and radiant. It should show the life-principle no longer driven from sea to land, and from land to air, or battling with a million foes, but vigorous and triumphant.
There is something more than that wanted: "Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." So, another condition of entering the kingdom that is, of coming for myself into the attitude of lowly, glad submission to God's will is the reception into our natures of a new life-principle, so that we are not only, like the men whom Christ compared with John, 'born of women, but by a higher birth are made partakers of a higher life, and born of the Spirit of God.
Every conceivable device in the way of arms and armour, brute strength and means of escape, seemed to be adopted in their development, as if they were the final and indestructible outcome of the life-principle.
The kernel is the same in both prefaces, you see the public must not take us too seriously. If we remove that kernel we remove the life-principle, and the preface is a corpse. Yes, it pleases me to have you use that idea, for it is a high compliment. But is leaves me nothing to combat; and that is damage to me. Am I seeming to say that your Reply is not a reply at all, M. Bourget?
To resist, to survive, to win through, is the end to which the life-principle sets itself with such singleness of aim as to unfold a wealth of potentiality astounding to us in looking backward. This was the idea which came back to me that autumn at Versailles, and from which in the course of time I drew my conclusions.
In this way we are brought to the conclusion that the Life-principle must always provide itself with a body in which to function, though it does not follow that this body must always be of the same chemical constitution as the one we now possess.
They who possess, even in germ, that new life-principle which comes in the measure of a man's faith in Christ, thereby are lifted above saints and martyrs and prophets of old. The humblest Christian grasps a fuller Christ, and therein possesses a fuller spiritual life, than did the ancient heroes of the faith. Christ's classification here says nothing about individual character.
And how does it effect that great miracle? 'I will put My Spirit within you. The new life-principle is the effluence of the Spirit of God. The promise does not merely offer the influence of a divine spirit, working on men as from without, or coming down upon them as an afflatus, but the actual planting of God's Spirit in the deep places of theirs.
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