that means, no consciousness of the Divine presence. It is right that it should be so. Beginnings are only beginnings, and the Lord sees that it is good; good, however, in its degree, no further.
So in this stage of regeneration the earth is only yielding its first fruits, not its best. On this plane of life, though good as compared with the old voidness and darkness, we are, spiritually speaking, only vegetating after all. We have had our evening of darker state and we stand in the morning of one better than the last. The evening and the morning are indeed the third day, but if we turn not back the revolving wheel of our re-creation there are four more yet to come. All in its time and order. Although we are but vegetating there is no cause for discouragement. We cannot go higher unless we stand on what is lower and take our upward step from thence; and everything, however imperfect as being comparatively low, is good as a standing place from whence to mount to things above.
And so we come to this point and the work still goes on. We stand among the sheaves of our garnered grain; we taste the rich fruits of a better life than once we had even dreamed of; but we look earnestly forward, lovingly higher, and wonder what better things the Lord has yet in store for us, in
