The vitality of the earth is shown by the universality and abundance of the vegetation that adorns its surface, and by the rapidity with which, after any great cataclysm, it covers the ruins with new verdure. The spiritual life of the Church of Christ appears in the immense multitude of its religious orders. The Christian body teems with vocations of every kind. Millions in every generation feel an irresistible impulse to strive for the highest perfection, and they exhibit that impulse under the most varied forms corresponding to the varied needs of humanity. This phenomenon persists through all changes of time, and place, and fashion. Persecution has often made a clean sweep of the religious orders in a country; they yield uncomplainingly, and disappear before the storm; but as soon as its fury relaxes, they begin to spring forth silently here and there till again they cover the face of the land. All the efforts of Satan and his agents, violence, irreligion, corruption of manners, have never been able to destroy the roots of the life of perfection which Jesus Christ planted in the Christian society. So the cities of men have encroached upon nature and at times have been abandoned; and within a few years they have been obliterated by a spontaneous growth of grasses, thickets and forest trees. So a prairie fire leaves behind it a desert of ashes, but the first shower of rain produces a young and more beautiful verdure than before. What a wonderful spiritual vitality is thus manifested! Truly the finger of God is here.
