fore Christ came to us. We see its shadow in the life
of root and stem, leaf and tendril and petal, that made up the plant
before its new birth took place; "for all flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." It is not only
that which is sinful as opposed to that which is holy: it is that
which is human as opposed to that which is Divine.

In the earlier stage of the seed-vessel's growth we see the two
lives, the old and the new, practically going on alongside. And can
we not remember, many of us, in our own history, how the self life
went almost untouched and unrecognised, for years, while all the time
Christ was growing within us, and our ministry was being given?

Let us look at the seed-vessels, well set and forming fast, with
their natural life all unbroken as yet, and learn to be very tender
and patient with the early stages of God's work in those around.

But though the two may exist for a time side by side, they cannot
flourish together. The crisis must come to us as to the annual, when
the old creation begins to go down into the grave, and the new begins
to triumph at its cost.

In the plant life the two are absolutely and for ever separate--there
is no possibility of confounding the perishable existence of leaf and
stalk with the newborn seed-vessel and its hidden riches. In the
heavenly light the distinction stands out as ineffaceably. "That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit." But our eyes are too dim at first to distinguish
them in detail: with most of us it is only when the cleansing Blood
has dealt with the question of known sin, and the Spirit's incoming
has cleared our vision, that the two lives, natural and spiritual,
begin to stand out before us, no longer shading into each other, but
in vivid contrast. The word of God in the hand of the Holy Ghost
pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and we see bit by
bit as we can bear it, how we have made provision for the flesh,
given occasion to the flesh, had confidence in the flesh, warred
after the flesh, judged after the flesh, purposed after the flesh,
known each other after the flesh. The carnal nature with its workings
stands out as the hindrance in the way of the Divine, and the time
comes when we see that no more growth is possible to the Christ in us
unless a deliverance comes here.

We are helpless in the matter. There is no system of self-repression