indeed the opening up of that spiritual plane of life, or of life on the plane of the spirit, to which we have so often referred, by means of which one becomes an angel of heaven. It is developed through unselfishness, the voluntary laying down of the selfish life, the determined following out of the commandments of Jesus, the executed resolve to love others as we love ourselves. And yet, after all, it is Divinely effected. One can no more be born by his own effort into the plane of the truly spiritual than he can be born by his own effort into the plane of the material. The Divine works within us to bring it about, but with our consent and coöperation. Without our consent and coöperation it cannot be brought about. We are acted upon by the Divine, and we react to it, and our reaction to the Divine influences is similar to the reaction of the mother to the father; the material or natural plane being, as it were, the mother that cooperates in bringing forth to life the new spiritual seed from our Heavenly Father.
This process of regeneration is the process to which we were destined from our birth. Without it we are undeveloped men, living here and hereafter the half-life, the imperfect, in-
