Virtue, the conscious recognition of a moral law and the conscious and deliberate conformity to it, is not the consummation of character. There is something still higher. The law of the spiritual life is not truly the law of the soul until wrought into the nature itself. Then virtue becomes the second nature. The man no longer by deliberate acts of the will conforms to a standard external to himself; he is not subject to law, but is himself an embodied law; becomes a law unto himself; does whatever he pleases because he pleases to do whatever is right. Thus, in that spiritual evolution which constitutes redemption, man passes through three stages: in the first he is lawless but innocent, and in his ignorance of the law he is controlled by his animal impulses; in the second stage he recognizes the higher law of his nascent divine nature, and endeavors to conform his life and character to it; in the third stage this law has become the law of his being, and he lives in peace and liberty, because his impulses have themselves become spiritual impulses. The first stage is innocence; the second is virtue; the third is holiness.

What is the secret power by which this revolution, or, if the reader prefers, this evolution, in character is wrought? The process is growth; but what is the power?