In relation to the character of the agency, the solution is clear. The agency by which the plan of salvation would be carried forward to its ultimate consummation would be spiritual in its nature, because God is a Spirit, and the soul of man is a spirit, and the end to be accomplished is to lead men to worship God 'in spirit and in truth.' In relation to the mode of the Spirit's operation, some things belong to that class of inquiries upon which the mind may exert its powers in vain.--The mode by which God communicates life to any thing in the vegetable, animal, or spiritual world lies beyond the reach of the human intellect. But although man cannot understand the _modus operandi_ of the Divine mind in communicating life, yet the manifestations of life, and the medium through which it operates, are subjects open to human examination. Whether the influence of the Spirit be directly upon the soul, or mediately by means of truth, the end accomplished would be the same. The soul might be quickened to see and feel the power of the truth; or, by the spirit, truth might be rendered powerful to affect the soul. The wax might be softened to receive the impression, or the seal heated, or a power exerted upon it, to make the impression on the wax; or both might be done, and still the result would be the same. It is not only necessary that the metal should be prepared to receive the impression of a die, but it is likewise necessary that the die should be prepared and adapted to the particular kind of metal--the image and the superscription of the king put upon it--the machinery prepared and adapted to hold the die and apply it to the metal; and after all these things necessary are done, the coin can never be made unless power is exerted to strike the die into the metal, or the metal into the die. So it is in the processes of the spiritual world; the material [mankind] must be prepared. The die [the truth of the gospel system] must be revealed and adapted to the material; and the image to be impressed upon human nature [the Lord Jesus Christ] and the superscription [glory to God and good-will to men] must be cut upon the die. Then the means of bringing the truth into contact with the material must be provided; and after all these preparations and adaptations, there must be the power of the Holy Spirit to guide the whole process, and to form the image of Christ in the soul. The foregoing is a complicated analogy, but not more complicated than are the processes of the animal and spiritual world. Look at the human body, with its thousands of adaptations, all of them necessary to the system, the whole dependent upon the use of means for the supply of animal life, and yet deriving from God its rational life, which operates through and actuates the whole. In like manner the Spirit of God operates through and guides the processes of the plan of salvation.