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MR. ALCOTT. Should you not want to have a physician?

ANDREW. I always do have one.

MR. ALCOTT. And the physician helps the cure.
God does more than the physician.

ANDREW.

WELLES.

The brass serpent was to make them remember to have faith in God. Their faith in God cured them.

Spiritual Birth.

EDWARD C. Being born again interested

me.

MR. ALCOTT. Have you been, or do you want to be? EDWARD C. No.

MR. ALCOTT. Being born again means being made better in spirit.

EDWARD C. I should like to be better, but I do not want to have my body born again.

JOHN B. I think Nicodemus was interested by the miracles of Jesus, and wanted to know whether he could believe in the rest. MR. ALCOTT. Did Jesus explain his miracles to him? JOHN B. He talked about spiritual birth with him. SAMUEL R. Being born again, I think, means that at death the spirit goes back to heaven. It was born before the body at

Spiritual
Renovation.

first, and goes back to its first state.

End of

MR. ALCOTT. What is the use of the SpirHuman Life. it's entering the body, and suffering, if we return to what we were before?

(Samuel hesitated.)

WELLES.

It has learned to resist temptation.

MR. ALCOTT. Suppose that temptation is not resisted, and wrong is done?

WELLES. We can then form resolutions.

MR. ALCOTT. What feeling makes us form resolutions of amendment?

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MR. ALCOTT.

What is self-knowledge?

AUGUSTINE. Knowledge of Spirit.

MR. ALCOTT. Of the Spirit's — what?
CHARLES. The Spirit's Faculties.

Cer

MR. ALCOTT. Which is Self-Consciousness? tain knowledge, "lifts us up." A little baby is good; but being tempted by outward things, it becomes acquainted with both the outward and inward world, and thus acts out its spirit.

EMMA. We ought to do as well as know.

MR. ALCOTT. So we come into the world to put our Spirits into action, either for keeping or recovering our innocence.

LUCIA. Being born again means that the Spirit should grow better all the time.

Renovation.

LUCIA.

MR. ALCOTT. What does the word

66

دو

' again mean in this place?

(After a pause.) The soul must come back to the goodness it had when it was a baby. We must lose some part of our goodness and find out what wrong is, and then become good again like a baby.

Holiness of
Infancy.

MR. ALCOTT. What do you call a baby at
first?

LUCIA. (Successively.) Innocent.
- Angelic.

MR. ALCOTT.

ELLEN. Holy.

Is there a better word still?

- Good.

MR. ALCOTT. And holy means what; like God Godlike?

(All assented.)

ELLEN. I thought being born again meant to have a new heart.

MR. ALCOTT. What is having a new heart?

ELLEN. To have all your sins forgiven.
MR. ALCOTT. How is that done?

Prayer.

ELLEN. By praying earnestly, with the spirit; that is, to mean and feel what we

say.

MR. ALCOTT.

Is feeling, all of prayer? GEORGE K. You must think right, too.

CHARLES. And act right, and be right.

MR. ALCOTT. Some of you think, perhaps, that prayer consists in saying over some words, whether you know what the words mean or not. Is it not true striving to do right that makes prayer?

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more than you need?

(All said no.)

Is it prayer to fall into a passion?

GEORGE K. That is a prayer to the dragon.

MR. ALCOTT. What is a new heart?

ELLEN. It means to want to act right; to be pure like a baby. It says "again," because once we were pure and holy.

MR. ALCOTT.

Fallen Spirits.

And are not those demons, who go and whisper wrong feelings and

thoughts into the souls of these holy ones?

(All held up hands.)

What shape did those demons take who went and whispered evil into the ears of your little brothers and sisters? was it the shape of Charles, or Lemuel, or William?

(All exclaimed, no.)

Did you ever strike a little brother or sister?

(Several held up hands.)

Were you not then such demons? Did you ever fret a

babe hurt its feelings. be selfish to it set it an example of disobedience, or any other wrong thing? (Some confessed to all these things.)

- their

Little babies lose their babyhoodPerversion of pure and holy life, in a great measure, be

Childhood.

cause those around them do not meet their holiness with love and generosity, and teach them about outward things, and bear patiently the mistakes which these little ones make with their heads, not hearts, while they are learning the outward world, and things of time. Take care that you do not help to destroy their holiness. Jesus said, "Whoever shall cause one of these little ones to offend, it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the depths of the sea.” Who kept his baby hood?

Childhood an
Emblem of
Holiness.

SEVERAL. Christ.

CHARLES. God is babyhood.

MR. ALCOTT. There is truth in that, I believe; and yet it is language so liable to be misunderstood, that it had better not be used. Do you know of any child of your acquaintance, who has such holiness and simplicity as always "to come to the light," having nothing within it that may not be seen?

(There was no answer.)

We shall resume this subject at our next Conversation.

CONVERSATION XXIX.

RESTAURATION OF SPIRIT.

SPIRITUAL RENEWAL.

Idea of the Supernatural. - Interview between Jesus and Nicodemus, from
the Sacred Text.-Type of Retribution. - Naughtiness. Imaginative
Faith.
Sense of Supernatural. - Restauration. -
Peccability of Childhood. Emblem of
Type of Self-Sacrifice. - Type of Conscience. -

Ideality of Jesus. Idea of Spiritual Renewal.

Spiritual Agency.

Open-heartedness.

MR. ALCOTT. We resume the subject of our last Conversation. Do you remember what it was?

Idea of the

Supernatural.

CHARLES. The Supernatural.

(Mr. Alcott described a storm at sea, and the sailors in despair, after having struggled with its terrors, going beyond Nature to prayer — the Supernatural ; - then death, where the Natural grows still, before the Supernatural, — then, the coming of Thought into the mind — the eagerness to express it.)

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MR. ALCOTT. Do you understand the birth of the Supernatural within the Soul?

(They assented.)

ELLEN. Jesus taught Nicodemus to be good by being born again.

MR. ALCOiT.

mean?

What does being born again

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