ABSTRACT
All life as visible to us in the outer form is an expression of an inner spirit; and in all that lives there is this duality of soul and form. The difference between a thing living and the same thing dead is simply that in the latter the soul—the very essence of the thing—has been withdrawn. In the book of Genesis we are given a perfectly clear indication that, not until the breath of life was inspired into man’s nostrils, did he become a living soul. Up to that time there was but a body formed from the dust of the earth; and when that inbreathed spirit is expired, the body returns to the dust as it was and the spirit returns to God who gave it. But the same is the lot of the flower, the bird, or the animal, for these too are the partakers of the same life and inspiration as ourselves, only in these other cases the spirit manifests itself in more limited and humble fashion. So life is for the expression of spirit, in which all the works of the Lord praise the Lord, and when there is no more spirit to be expressed then life is at an end. But, while we live and give expression as we should, we grow in spiritual wisdom and stature.
