Christ whom Thou has sent?_" Do I not better understand with what vision
and rapture the profoundest of the disciples exclaims, "The Son of God
is come, and hath given us an understanding that we might know Him that
is True?" [1]
[1] 1 John v. 20.
Having opened correspondence with the Eternal Environment, the
subsequent stages are in the line of all other normal development. We
have but to continue, to deepen, to extend, and to enrich the
correspondence that has been begun. And we shall soon find to our
surprise that this is accompanied by another and parallel process. The
action is not all upon our side. The Environment also will be found to
correspond. The influence of Environment is one of the greatest and most
substantial of modern biological doctrines. Of the power of Environment
to form or transform organisms, of its ability to develop or suppress
function, of its potency in determining growth, and generally of its
immense influence in Evolution, there is no need now to speak. But
Environment is now acknowledged to be one of the most potent factors in
the Evolution of Life. The influence of Environment, too, seems to
increase rather than diminish as we approach the higher forms of being.
The highest forms are the most mobile; their capacity of change is the
greatest; they are, in short, most easily acted on by Environment. And
not only are the highest organisms the most mobile, but the highest
parts of the highest organisms are more mobile than the lower.
Environment can do little, comparatively, in the direction of inducing
variation in the body of a child; but how plastic is its mind! How
infinitely sensitive is its soul! How infallibly can it be tuned to
music or to dissonance by the moral harmony or discord of its outward
lot! How decisively indeed are we not all formed and moulded, made or
unmade, by external circumstance! Might we not all confess with
Ulysses,--
"I am a part of all that I have met?"
Much more, then, shall we look for the influence of Environment on the
spiritual nature of him who has opened correspondence with God. Reaching
out his eager and quickened faculties to the spiritual world around him,
shall he not become spiritual? In vital contact with Holiness, shall he
not become holy? Breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable Purity, shall
he miss becoming pure? Walking with God from day to day, shall he fail
to be taught of God?
Growth in grace is sometimes described as a strange, mystical, and
unintelligible process. It is mystical, but neither strange nor
unintelligible. It proceeds according to Natural Law, and the leading
factor in sanctification is Influence of Environment. The possibility of
it depends upon the mobility of the organism; the result, on the extent
and frequency of certain correspondences. These facts insensibly lead on
to further suggestion. Is it not possible that these biological truths
may carry with them the clue to a still profounder philosophy--even that
of Regeneration?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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