So is its flowering. But its great perfection and its final use are developed only when it has come to that stage of growth wherein it is able to bring forth fruit. The fruit is the end for which the tree was designed by its Creator. Each step of its development is good as a stage of progress; but it has fulfilled its destiny, it has reached for the first time its highest perfection as a tree, when it becomes first fruit laden. This also, in its way, is a parable of man.
And so it was with the earth. Its incipient stages of creation were pronounced by the Lord to be good. When the dry land first made its appearance above the waters, it was good. When the land brought forth vegetation, although animate life was still unknown, it was good. Good when the mists cleared away, and sun, moon and stars shone down for its greater and more glorious light; good when the fish began to people its waters, the birds to fly in its atmospheres, and the beasts to roam its grassy plains. But it was not called very good until it had advanced to a condition when it was fit for the habitation of man, and so fulfilled the object of its creation.
The earth, in the narrative, is used as a symbol of the mind of man. The regeneration of the mind goes on by steps parallel with the development of the tree, or the creation of the earth. Here again each
