gardens, you have living trees, and flowers, and seeds.

"Then there is animal life. Only think of the variety, and
usefulness, and instinctive skill of unnumbered members of the
animal world.

"Then, rising higher in the scale of being, you have human life.
Every man, woman, and child posesses, as it were, a trinity of
existence; namely, physical life, mental life, and soul life; each
being a marvel in itself.

"Then, rising higher still, we have a life more important, and
bringing more glory to God than any of the other forms that I have
noticed, and that is _Spiritual Life_.

"On this Spiritual Life let me make one or two remarks.

"Spiritual Life is Divine in its origin. It is a creation of the
Holy Spirit. I need not dwell on this truth. Jesus Christ was at
great trouble to teach it. 'Marvel not,' He said, 'ye must be born
again. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is
born of the Spirit is spirit.' You have gone through this
experience yourselves. You must insist on it in your people.
Spiritual life proceeds from God. It can be obtained in no other
way.

"Spiritual Life not only proceeds from God, but partakes of the
nature of God.

"We see this principle, that the life imparted partakes of the
nature of the author of being that imparts it, illustrated around
us in every direction.

"The tree partakes of the nature of the tree from which it is
derived. The animal partakes of the nature of the creature that it
begets. The child partakes of the nature of its parents. So the
soul, born of God, will possess the nature of its Author. Its life
will be divine.

"This is a mystery. We cannot understand it, but the Apostle
distinctly affirms it when he says, the Son of God is a partaker of
the Divine nature.

"Spiritual Life, like all other life, carries with it the
particular powers belonging to its own nature.

"Every kind of life has its own particular powers--senses,
instincts, or whatever they may be called.

"Vegetable life has its powers, enabling it to draw nutrition out
of the ground.

"Fish life has power adapting it to an existence in the water.

"Animal life has powers or senses suitable to its sphere of
existence, such as seeing, hearing, tasting, and the like.