But illustrate the principle on the divine side, by considering the method of God. Does He not work by His Spirit? He has breathed it, in some measure, into all creatures, chiefly into man; and is it not the necessity of its nature to work? There is something of it in every living thing, and this something is its true life. From our abounding harvests select a grain of wheat or corn. Within that little seed lodges a power which no man fully comprehends, but which is essential to the world's life. Ask it to explain itself, and it says not a word; grind it to powder, and the dust is but dust. Keep it whole, and in the spring-time within the ground, its spirit will come out first in the green blade, and last in the golden ears. This is always the method of God, to work from within outward; from the spirit to the work. What is the course of nature but the going forth of life from the spirit to the work, and from the work back again to the spirit, all genuine growth multiplying the vitality from which it sprung? It is what the philosopher calls the law of ultimates, or the process from firsts to lasts and from lasts to firsts. The Gospel is its best illustration; for it put a new spirit into men, and worked itself out in new works, all its works diffusing and quickening the spirit from which they sprung. It took hold of the world practically, and made it a business to do away with old evils, and build up a kingdom more enlarged, and kindly, and pure,--more spiritual than the earth had seen before.