As a matter of truth the Lord alone regenerates us. It is He only who infuses the good into our desires, thoughts or acts. Our part is simply to yield to those influences. Then under their impulse we, in the freedom with which we are endowed, endeavor to avoid what is wrong in purpose, thought or deed. But, in our first beginnings to fly, like the young birds, we come to the ground very often. We do it especially in this, that we deem whatever of spiritual progress we make to be so made in our own strength. In this position of mind the Lord gets but little of the credit. We may, indeed, say that it is the Lord's influence, aid and strength; but we do not feel it, do not realize his presence as in the effort, do not from our real hearts so acknowledge it. We imagine we acknowledge things sometimes when we really do not. And one of the most common perversities of human nature is for a man to think he believes a certain thing, when underneath and behind his thought, concealed from his own immediate view, is a huge distrust of the very truth that he thinks he thinks.
Yet notwithstanding the small amount of spiritual life which is to be found in these first efforts at living out so much of the truth of God as we have begun to profess, this third state of regeneration is a most valuable experience. The swimmer would never have learned to swim unless he had
