Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/67

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THe First Fruits of Spiritual Life.
63

learn in after life, just so far as it has not entered the spiritual understanding.

But these waters are said to be gathered by the Lord into one place. This is an expression, in symbolic form, of the truth that what we learn of spiritual things is first gathered together in the memory. Leaving out of consideration the physical organs, the brain and its various parts, through which the intellect primarily operates, the mind itself has many organs. One of these, and perhaps, the lowest of these, is the memory. It is the one place into which all mental impressions are first gathered.

God creates everything well. All things are arranged by him in true order and with reference to what is yet to come. It is true of the physical universe and it is true of man as a material and mental being. Equally true is it of man as a spiritual being. Creation in all of its developments proceeds by orderly stages. Learning precedes understanding; memory precedes comprehension. The child, for instance, learns his figures and his multiplication table and various rules of arithmetic at first as mere things of the memory. It is only afterwards as he comes to make application of them to matters of practical import that he realizes the use and beauty of them, and understands why they were so given. First stored up in the memory as mere dead