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The Firmament of Spiritual Thought.
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ward wrong, but there is no good in him unless he avoids the wrong in heart as well as in act, and that of his own free will.

On this account, the Lord, while always leaving us in freedom, still watches sleeplessly our daily steps and thoughts, and places us in such positions, and surrounds us with such situations, and leads us where we will get such and so much instruction, as will give us, each according to his genius and nature, the best opportunities to be led into the light with regard to the superiority of spiritual things over natural. This light usually dawns very slowly, but when it comes, it is to the soul as the fiat of God which has said and has long been saying, "Let there be light!"

So the Spirit of God has been moving upon the face of the mind in every effort that his mercy has made to lead us into an acknowledgment of these grand truths: that God exists, that life eternal is of more value than life temporal, that the soul is of greater concern than the body, that spirituality is superior to worldliness. Then as He has been so long whispering, "Let there be light!" when the light comes He sees that it is good. And then also He divides between the light and darkness; that is He causes to arise in the mind a clear distinction between those false principles of life which, as lovers of the world, we believed in, and those true principles