powers from the sun and heavens operating upon that soil.
Now, just so is it with the soil of the human mind. This is a mental earth, as it were, endowed with a certain constitution or organization, by which it is capable of bringing forth the flowers and fruits of beautiful and useful thoughts,—not, however, without being acted upon by heat and light from the Divine Sun,—God: without this, it is barren and produces nothing, however perfect the organization. This mental heat and light are love and truth; for love is intellectual heat, and truth is intellectual light; and these are ever poured on the mind of man, fresh from their great Fountain, as the natural light and heat flow ceaselessly from the sun to the earth. The earth indeed is never endowed with heat and light, for it cannot be: that is contrary to the nature of those substances: they are not capable of being permanently set or fixed in any object; they must be ever received afresh, or they cease to be. There is no such thing as old light or heat; it is not yesterday's light that we are enjoying to-day; this has come fresh from the sun this morning and this moment. It is just so with the heat and light that vivify the mental soil,—namely, love and truth. These must come each moment afresh from the Spiritual Sun, the "Sun of Righteousness," God, who is Love and Truth Itself,—or the mind of man would be dark and his heart cold, and he would soon cease not only to think, but to live. For, in truth, this also is the source of that vital heat, that animal heat, as it is called, in man, which so wonderfully remains the same in all latitudes and at all seasons, and which can be accounted for on no mere physical principles: it is the effect of
