MAN IN NATURE 225 



of Christ, and the prophecy of the New Jerusalem 

 strike the same note which all material nature gives 

 forth when we interrogate it respecting its relations to 

 man. The profound manner in which these truths 

 appear in the teaching of Christ has perhaps not been 

 appreciated as it should, because we have not sought 

 in that teaching the philosophy of nature which it 

 contains. When He points to the common weeds of 

 the fields, and asks us to consider the garments more 

 gorgeous than those of kings in which God has clothed 

 them, and when He says of these same wild flowers, 

 so daintily made by the Supreme Artificer, that to-day 

 they are, and to-morrow are cast into the oven, He 

 gives us not merely a lesson of faith, but a deep 

 insight into that want of unison which, centring in 

 humanity, reaches all the way from the wild flower 

 to the God who made it, and requires for its rectifica 

 tion nothing less than the breathing of that Divine 

 Spirit which first evoked order and life out of primeval 

 chaos. When He points out to us the growth of these 

 flowers without any labour of their own, He opens up 

 one of the most profound analogies between the 

 growth of the humblest living thing and that of the 

 new spiritual nature which may be planted in man by 

 that same Divine Spirit. 



