Well, our souls are so many "green islands" in the desert of this world, and our Lord is the fountain in their centre. His presence adorns the soul with all that fragrance and fulness which we find in the innocent and pure. St. Teresa had a great fondness for this passage of Scripture from her very childhood. Though at that time she did not know the value of this promise of our Lord as she did in after life, she says: "I very often asked the Divine Master to give to me this precious water." The soul is God's "Image." "_Let us make man to our image and likeness_." [Footnote 105] So God said when he created the first human soul. [Footnote 105: Gen. i., 26.] Our souls, then, are like God. God is the perfection of all beauty. As we say, God is truth, so we say, God is beauty. There are two ways in which we are like God, for He says: "Let us make man to our image _and_ likeness." In one way, the devils and souls in mortal sin are like God. They have the gifts of intelligence and free will. This is the image of God which, when a creature once has, it can never lose. The likeness which a soul in the state of grace bears to God, is in the gift of habitual, or sanctifying grace. {242} This can be lost, and the devils and souls in mortal sin have lost it. God has made us pupils of his, as it were. Our Master has drawn the outline of Himself upon our souls, and our work is to fill up this sketch with light and shade. A Christian is therefore an artist of the highest class; for there can be no subject so inspiring as his. What a beautiful talent it is to be able to transfer to canvas some scene from nature, of which it becomes the exact copy. There are certain combinations of water and mountain, meadow and foliage, nature and art, blended and softened by a peculiar state of the atmosphere, which act like a spell upon one. All we can say, is, how very beautiful! But, beautiful as it is, it will vanish before the winter's frost. The canvas, too, in time will moulder away. But the image of God on our souls is more beautiful than any scene in nature, and it will preserve its beauty forever. These are some illustrations from Holy Scripture which enable us to form an idea of what is the beauty of a soul when in union with God. {243} Did you ever know, my brethren, that God had been so good to you? Have you not over looked and undervalued your treasure? This life of yours hitherto, on the surface of things, has been both a great mistake and a great misfortune. II. To make you realize this, let me tell you two great advantages of an interior life.