“A beautiful geranium plant that adorned the window died during the winter. Leaves and flowers withered, leaving only a mass of mildew and decay. What was the cause? Merely the loss of the sun’s light and heat. But that was enough, for those belong to the nature of the plant, and are essential to its life and beauty. Deprived of them, it remains not what it is; its nature loses its soundness, and this causes decay, mildew, and poisonous gases, which soon destroy it.

“So of human nature: in Paradise, Adam was like the blooming plant, flourishing in the warmth and brightness of the Lord’s presence. By sin, he fled from that presence. The result was not merely the loss of light and heat, but since these were essential to his nature, that nature languished, drooped and withered. The mildew of corruption formed upon it; and the positive process of dissolution was begun, to end only in eternal death.”