n the vow of the candidate.

The "second birth" is another well-recognised term for Initiation; even
now in India the higher castes are called "twice-born," and the ceremony
that makes them twice-born is a ceremony of Initiation--mere husk truly,
in these modern days, but the "pattern of things in the heavens."[57]
When Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, He states that "Except a man be
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," and this birth is spoken
of as that "of water and the Spirit;"[58] this is the first Initiation;
a later one is that of "the Holy Ghost and fire,"[59] the baptism of the
Initiate in his manhood, as the first is that of birth, which welcomes
him as "the Little Child" entering the Kingdom.[60] How thoroughly this
imagery was familiar among the mystic of the Jews is shown by the
surprise evinced by Jesus when Nicodemus stumbled over His mystic
phraseology: "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these
things?"[61]

Another precept of Jesus which remains as "a hard saying" to his
followers is: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect."[62] The ordinary Christian knows that he cannot
possibly obey this command; full of ordinary human frailties and
weaknesses, how can he become perfect as God is perfect? Seeing the
impossibility of the achievement set before him, he quietly puts it
aside, and thinks no more about it. But seen as the crowning effort of
many lives of steady improvement, as the triumph of the God within us
over the lower nature, it comes within calculable distance, and we
recall the words of Porphyry, how the man who achieves "the paradigmatic
virtues is the Father of the Gods,"[63] and that in the Mysteries these
virtues were acquired.

S. Paul follows in the footsteps of his Master, and speaks in exactly
the same sense, but, as might be expected from his organising work in
the Church, with greater explicitness and clearness. The student should
read with attention chapters ii. and iii., and verse 1 of chapter iv. of
the First Epistle to the Corinthians, remembering, as he reads, that the
words are addressed to baptised and communicant members of the Church,
full members from the modern standpoint, although described as babes and
carnal by the Apostle. They were not catechumens or neophytes, but men
and women who were in complete possession of all the privileges and
responsibilities of Church membership, recognised by the Apostle as
being separ