rd, that it should develop gradually. On two of these
points there can be little controversy. The gradualness of growth is a
characteristic which strikes the simplest observer. Long before the word
Evolution was coined Christ applied it in this very connection--"First
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." It is well
known also to those who study the parables of Nature that there is an
ascending scale of slowness as we rise in the scale of Life. Growth is
most gradual in the highest forms. Man attains his maturity after a
score of years; the monad completes its humble cycle in a day. What
wonder if development be tardy in the Creature of Eternity? A
Christian's sun has sometimes set, and a critical world has seen as yet
no corn in the ear. As yet? "As yet," in this long Life, has not begun.
Grant him the years proportionate to his place in the scale of Life.
"The time of harvest is _not yet_."

Again, in addition to being slow, the phenomena of growth are secret.
Life is invisible. When the New Life manifests itself it is a surprise.
_Thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth._ When the
plant lives whence has the Life come? When it dies whither has it gone?
_Thou canst not tell ... so is every one that is born of the Spirit. For
the kingdom of God cometh without observation._

Yet once more--and this is a point of strange and frivolous
dispute--this Life comes suddenly. This is the only way in which Life
can come. Life cannot come gradually--health can, structure can, but not
Life. A new theology has laughed at the Doctrine of Conversion. Sudden
Conversion especially has been ridiculed as untrue to philosophy and
impossible to human nature. We may not be concerned in buttressing any
theology because it is old. But we find that this old theology is
scientific. There may be cases--they are probably in the majority--where
the moment of contact with the Living Spirit though sudden has been
obscure. But the real moment and the conscious moment are two different
things. Science pronounces nothing as to the conscious moment. If it did
it would probably say that that was seldom the real moment--just as in
the natural Life the conscious moment is not the real moment. The moment
of birth in the natural world is not a conscious moment--we do not know
we are born till long afterward. Yet there are men to whom the Origin of
the New Life in time has been no difficulty. To Paul, for instance,
Christ s