,
supernatural help from God, can act according to their nature, so can
we. We, being human, have a high and richly-endowed animal nature, a
nature that leads us not only to eat, drink, sleep, and fight like the
lower animals, but a nature which leads us to think and to love, and
which, by culture and education, can enjoy a much richer and wider life
than the lower creatures. Men need not be in the kingdom of God in order
to do much that is admirable, noble, lovely, because their nature as
animals fits them for that. If we were to exist at all as a race of
animals superior to all others, then all this is just what must be found
in us. Irrespective of any kingdom of God at all, irrespective of any
knowledge of God or reference to Him, we have a life in this world, and
a nature fitting us for it. And it is this we have by our natural birth,
a place among our kind, an animal life. The first man, from whom we all
descend, was, as St. Paul profoundly says, "a living soul," that is to
say, an animal, a living human being; but he had not "a quickening
spirit," could not give to his children spiritual life and make them
children of God.

Now if we ask ourselves a little more closely, What is human nature?
what are the characteristics by which men are distinguished from all
other creatures? what is it which marks off our kind from every other
kind, and which is always produced by human parents? we may find it hard
to give a definition, but one or two things are obvious and
indisputable. In the first place, we could not deny human nature to men
who do not love God, or who even know nothing of Him. There are many
whom we should naturally speak of as remarkably fine specimens of human
nature, who yet never think of God, nor in any way acknowledge Him. It
is plain, therefore, that the acknowledgment and love of God, which
give us entrance into His kingdom, are _not_ a part of our nature, are
not the gifts of our birth.

And yet is there anything that so distinctly separates us from the lower
animals as our _capacity_ for God and for eternity? Is it not our
capacity to respond to God's love, to enter into His purposes, to
measure things by eternity, that is our real dignity? The capacity is
there, even when unused; and it is this capacity which invests man and
all his works with an interest and a value which attach to no other
creature. Man's nature is capable of being born again, and that is its
peculiarity; there is in man a dorm