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in Himself (John v. 26). The Divine Life is communicated to those who seek it in Christ. We are not to restrict the thought of that Life to the immaterial part of our nature; it is the more abundant life which floods the being of him who 'liveth unto God.'[1] We may not fathom its hidden processes: like spiritual teaching, spiritual healing can come home only to the 'spiritual men' whose minds are 'in tune with the Infinite.'[2] But some desire for 'more life and fuller' is found in every man. Classical scholars will remember the pathetic lines written by the statesman Mæcenas in his last illness:

Debilem facito manu,
Debilem pede, coxa . . .
Vita dum superest, bene est.<ref>Seneca, Ep. 101:

<poem>
'What matters crippled hand and halting thigh?
So life be left the cripple, what care I?'

</ref> </poem>

In this universal fact of human nature, this desire to live, which varies infinitely among men from the mere craving of animal existence up to the desire for the life in God, we see man's response to the Giver of Life.

The appeal of the Good Physician is to human nature, and 'He knows what is in man.' He takes a natural emotion or faculty, vitalises

  1. John x. 10; Rom. vi. 10.
  2. 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15.