{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13677/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13677","id":"gutenberg_13677","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13677","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Quotations"],"text":"\"Beautiful Thoughts\" From Henry Drummond\n\nArranged by Elizabeth Cureton\n\n{Project Gutenberg Editorial note: Many quotes from \"The Greatest Thing\nin the World\" did not provide a page number.}\n\n\n1892\n\n\nThe invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly\nseen, being understood by the things that are made.--Rom. i. 20.\n\n\nTo My Dear Friend\n\nHelen M. Archibald\n\nThis Book\n\nIs Affectionately Inscribed.\n\n\n\nPreface.\n\nMy first thought of writing out this little book of brief selections\nsprang from the desire to assist a dear friend to enjoy the Author's\nhelpful books.\n\nThe epigrammatic style lends itself to quotation. Taste of the spring\nbrings the traveller back to the same fountain on a day of greater\nleisure. Many times these \"Beautiful Thoughts\" have enlightened my\ndarkness, and I send them forth with a hope and prayer that they may find\necho in other hearts. E. C.\n\nJanuary 1st. Christianity wants nothing so much in the world as sunny\npeople, and the old are hungrier for love than for bread, and the Oil of\nJoy is very cheap, and if you can help the poor on with a Garment of\nPraise it will be better for them than blankets. The Programme of\nChristianity, p. 33.\n\nJanuary 2d. No one who knows the content of Christianity, or feels the\nuniversal need of a Religion, can stand idly by while the intellect of\nhis age is slowly divorcing itself from it. Natural Law, Preface, p. 22\n\nJanuary 3d. A Science without mystery is unknown; a Religion without\nmystery is absurd. However far the scientific method may penetrate the\nSpiritual World, there will always remain a region to be explored by a\nscientific faith. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 28.\n\nJanuary 4th. Among the mysteries which compass the world beyond, none is\ngreater than how there can be in store for man a work more wonderful, a\nlife more God-like than this. The Programme of Christianity, p. 62.\n\nJanuary 5th. The Spiritual Life is the gift of the Living Spirit. The\nspiritual man is no mere development of the Natural man. He is a New\nCreation born from Above. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 65.\n\nJanuary 6th. Love is success, Love is happiness, Love is life. God is\nLove. Therefore LOVE. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nJanuary 7th. Give me the Charity which delights not in exposing the\nweakness of others, but \"covereth all things.\" The Greatest Thing in the\nWorld.\n\nJanuary 8th. There is a sense of solidity about a Law of Nature which\nbelongs to nothing else in the world. Here, at last, amid all that is\nshifting, is one thing sure; one thing outside ourselves, unbiassed,\nunprejudiced, uninfluenced by like or dislike, by doubt or fear. . . .\nThis more than anything else makes one eager to see the Reign of Law\ntraced in the Spiritual Sphere. Natural Law, Preface, p. 23.\n\nJanuary 9th. With Nature as the symbol of all of harmony and beauty that\nis known to man, must we still talk of the supernatural, not as a\nconvenient word, but as a different order of world, . . . where the Reign\nof Mystery supersedes the Reign of Law? Natural Law, Introduction, p. 6.\n\nJanuary 10th. The Reign of Law has gradually crept into every department\nof Nature, transforming knowledge everywhere into Science. The process\ngoes on, and Nature slowly appears to us as one great unity, until the\nborders of the Spiritual World are reached. Natural Law, Introduction, p.\n13.\n\nJanuary 11th. No single fact in Science has ever discredited a fact in\nReligion. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 30.\n\nJanuary 12th. I shall never rise to the point of view which wishes to\n\"raise\" faith to knowledge. To me, the way of truth is to come through\nthe knowledge of my ignorance to the submissiveness of faith, and then,\nmaking that my starting-place, to raise my knowledge into faith. Natural\nLaw, Introduction, p. 28. Quotation from Beck:  Bib. Psychol.\n\nJanuary 13th. If the purification of Religion comes from Science, the\npurification of Science, in a deeper sense, shall come from Religion.\nNatural Law, Introduction, p. 31.\n\nJanuary 14th. With the demonstration of the naturalness of the\nsupernatural, scepticism even may come to be regarded as unscientific.\nAnd those who have wrestled long for a few bare truths to ennoble life\nand rest their souls in thinking of the future will not be left in doubt.\nNatural Law, Introduction, p. 32.\n\nJanuary 15th. The religion of Jesus has probably always suffered more\nfrom those who have misunderstood than from those who have opposed it.\nNatural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 67.\n\nJanuary 16th. It is impossible to believe that the amazing successions of\nrevelations in the domain of Nature, during the last few centuries, at\nwhich the world has all but grown tired wondering, are to yield nothing\nfor the higher life. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 32.\n\nJanuary 17th. Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every\nman and woman every day has a thousand of them. Greatest Thing in the\nWorld.\n\nJanuary 18th. What is Science but what the Natural World has said to\nnatural men? What is Revelation but what the Spiritual World has said to\nSpiritual men? Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 73.\n\nJanuary 19th. Life depends upon contact with Life. It cannot spring up\nout of itself. It cannot develop out of anything that is not Life. There\nis no Spontaneous Generation in religion any more than in Nature. Christ\nis the source of Life in the Spiritual World; and he that hath the Son\nhath Life, and he that hath not the Son, whatever else he may have, hath\nnot Life. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 74.\n\nJanuary 20th. It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard,\nuncharitable world, there should still be left a few rare souls who think\nno evil. Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nJanuary 21st. The physical Laws may explain the inorganic world; the\nbiological Laws may account for the development of the organic. But of\nthe point where they meet, of that strange borderland between the dead\nand the living, Science is silent. It is as if God had placed everything\nin earth and heaven in the hands of Nature, but reserved a point at the\ngenesis of Life for His direct appearing. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p.\n69.\n\nJanuary 22d. Except a mineral be born \"from above\"--from the Kingdom just\nABOVE it--it cannot enter the Kingdom just above it. And except a man be\nborn \"from above,\" by the same law, he cannot enter the Kingdom just\nabove him. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 72.\n\nJanuary 23d. If we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see\nthat success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them.\nGreatest Thing in the World.\n\nJanuary 24th. The world is not a play-ground; it is a school-room. Life\nis not a holiday, but an education. And the one eternal lesson for us all\nis how better we can love. Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nJanuary 25th What a noble gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls\nand wills of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds.\nGreatest Thing in the World.\n\nJanuary 26th. The test of Religion, the final test of Religion, is not\nReligiousness, but Love. Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nJanuary 27th. There are not two laws of Bio-genesis, one for the natural,\nthe other for the Spiritual; one law is for both. Where-ever there is\nLife, Life of any kind, this same law holds. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p.\n75.\n\nJanuary 28th. The first step in peopling these worlds with the\nappropriate living forms is virtually miracle. Nor in one case is there\nless of mystery in the act than in the other. The second birth is\nscarcely less perplexing to the theologian than the first to the\nembryologist. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 76.\n\nJanuary 29th. There may be cases--they are probably in the majority--\nwhere the moment of contact with the Living Spirit, though sudden, has\nbeen obscure. But the real moment and the conscious moment are two\ndifferent things. Science pronounces nothing as to the conscious moment.\nIf it did, it would probably say that that was seldom the real moment--\nThe moment of birth in the natural world is not a conscious moment--we\ndo not know we are born till long afterward. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p.\n93.\n\nJanuary 30th. The stumbling-block to most minds is perhaps less the mere\nexistence of the unseen than the want of definition, the apparently\nhopeless vagueness, and not least, the delight in this vagueness as mere\nvagueness by some who look upon this as the mark of quality in Spiritual\nthings. It will be at least something to tell earnest seekers that the\nSpiritual World is not a castle in the air, of an architecture unknown\nto earth or heaven, but a fair ordered realm furnished with many familiar\nthings and ruled by well-remembered Laws. Natural Law, Introduction, p.\n26.\n\nJanuary 31st. Character grows in the stream of the world's life. That\nchiefly is where men are to learn love. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nFebruary 1st. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps\nmuscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in\nhis soul, no strength of character, no vigour of moral fibre, nor beauty\nof Spiritual growth. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nFebruary 2d. A Religion without mystery is an absurdity. Even Science has\nits mysteries, none more inscrutable than around this Science of Life. It\ntaught us sooner or later to expect mystery, and now we enter its domain.\nLet it be carefully marked, however, that the cloud does not fall and\ncover us till we have ascertained the most momentous truth of Religion--\nthat Christ is in the Christian. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 88.\n\nFebruary 3d. Religion in having mystery is in analogy with all around it.\nWhere there is exceptional mystery in the Spiritual World it will\ngenerally be found that there is a corresponding mystery in the natural\nworld. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 91.\n\nFebruary 4th. Even to earnest minds the difficulty of grasping the truth\nat all has always proved extreme. Philosophically, one scarcely sees\neither the necessity or the possibility of being born again. Why a\nvirtuous man should not simply grow better and better until in his own\nright he enter the Kingdom of God is what thousands honestly and\nseriously fail to understand. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 80.\n\nFebruary 5th. Lavish Love upon our equals, where it is very difficult,\nand for whom perhaps we each do least of all. The Greatest Thing in the\nWorld.\n\nFebruary 6th. Spiritual Life is not something outside ourselves. The idea\nis not that Christ is in heaven and that we can stretch out some\nmysterious faculty and deal with Him there. This is the vague form in\nwhich many conceive the truth, but it is contrary to Christ's teaching\nand to the analogy of nature. Life is definite and resident; and\nSpiritual Life is not a visit from a force, but a resident tenant in the\nsoul. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 87.\n\nFebruary 7th. If we neglect almost any of the domestic animals, they will\nrapidly revert to wild and worthless forms. Now, the same thing exactly\nwould happen in the case of you or me. Why should man be an exception to\nany of the laws of nature? Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 99.\n\nFebruary 8th. The law of Reversion to Type runs through all creation. If\na man neglect himself for a few years he will change into a worse and a\nlower man. If it is his body that he neglects, he will deteriorate into a\nwild and bestial savage. . . . If it is his mind, it will degenerate into\nimbecility and madness. . . . If he neglect his conscience, it will run\noff into lawlessness and vice. Or, lastly, if it is his soul, it must\ninevitably atrophy, drop off in ruin and decay. Natural Law,\nDegeneration, p. 99.\n\nFebruary 9th. Three possibilities of life, according to Science, are open\nto all living organisms--Balance, Evolution, and Degeneration. Natural\nLaw, Degeneration, p. 100.\n\nFebruary 10th. The life of Balance is difficult. It lies on the verge of\ncontinual temptation, its perpetual adjustments become fatiguing, its\nmeasured virtue is monotonous and uninspiring. Natural Law, Degeneration,\np. 101.\n\nFebruary 11th. More difficult still, apparently, is the life of ever\nupward growth. Most men attempt it for a time, but growth is slow; and\ndespair overtakes them while the goal is far away. Natural Law,\nDegeneration, p. 101.\n\nFebruary 12th. Degeneration is easy. Why is it easy? Why but that already\nin each man's very nature this principle is supreme? He feels within his\nsoul a silent drifting motion impelling him downward with irresistible\nforce. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 101.\n\nFebruary 13th. This is Degeneration--that principle by which the\norganism, failing to develop itself, failing even to keep what it has\ngot, deteriorates, and becomes more and more adapted to a degraded form\nof life. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 101.\n\nFebruary 14th. It is a distinct fact by itself, which we can hold and\nexamine separately, that on purely natural principles the soul that is\nleft to itself unwatched, uncultivated, unredeemed, must fall away into\ndeath by its own nature. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 104.\n\nFebruary 15th. If a man find the power of sin furiously at work within\nhim, dragging his whole life downward to destruction, there is only one\nway to escape his fate--to take resolute hold of the upward power, and be\nborne by it to the opposite goal. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 108.\n\nFebruary 16th. Neglect does more for the soul than make it miss\nsalvation. It despoils it of its capacity for salvation. Natural Law,\nDegeneration, p. 110.\n\nFebruary 17th. Give pleasure. Lose no chance in giving pleasure. For that\nis the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. Greatest\nThing in the World.\n\nFebruary 18th. If there were uneasiness there might be hope. If there\nwere, somewhere about our soul, a something which was not gone to sleep\nlike all the rest; if there were a contending force anywhere; if we would\nlet even that work instead of neglecting it, it would gain strength from\nhour to hour, and waken up, one at a time, each torpid and dishonoured\nfaculty, till our whole nature became alive with strivings against self,\nand every avenue was open wide for God. Natural Law, Degeneration, p.\n112.\n\nFebruary 19th. Where is the capacity for heaven to come from if it be not\ndeveloped on earth? Where, indeed, is even the smallest appreciation of\nGod and heaven to come from when so little of spirituality has ever been\nknown or manifested here? Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 116.\n\nFebruary 20th. Men tell us sometimes there is no such thing as an\natheist. There must be. There are some men to whom it is true that there\nis no God. They cannot see God because they have no eye. They have only\nan abortive organ, atrophied by neglect. Natural Law, Degeneration, p.\n115.\n\nFebruary 21st. Escape means nothing more than the gradual emergence of\nthe higher being from the lower, and nothing less. It means the gradual\nputting off of all that cannot enter the higher state, or heaven, and\nsimultaneously the putting on of Christ. It involves the slow completing\nof the soul and the development of the capacity for God. Natural Law,\nDegeneration, p. 117.\n\nFebruary 22d. If, then, escape is to be open to us, it is not to come to\nus somehow, vaguely. We are not to hope for anything startling or\nmysterious. It is a definite opening along certain lines which are\ndefinitely marked by God, which begin at the Cross of Christ, and lead\ndirect to Him. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 117.\n\nFebruary 23d. Each man, in the silence of his own soul, must work out\nthis salvation for himself with fear and trembling--with fear, realizing\nthe momentous issues of his task; with trembling, lest, before the tardy\nwork be done, the voice of Death should summon him to stop. Natural Law,\nDegeneration, p. 118.\n\nFebruary 24th. So cultivate the soul that all its powers will open out to\nGod, and in beholding God be drawn away from sin. Natural Law,\nDegeneration, p. 118.\n\nFebruary 25th. There is a Sense of Sight in the religious nature. Neglect\nthis, leave it undeveloped, and you never miss it. You simply see\nnothing. But develop it and you see God. Natural Law, Degeneration, p.\n118.\n\nFebruary 26th. Become pure in heart. The pure in heart shall see God.\nHere, then, is one opening for soul-culture--the avenue through purity of\nheart to the spiritual seeing of God. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 119.\n\nFebruary 27th. There is a Sense of Sound. Neglect this, leave it\nundeveloped, and you never miss it. Develop it, and you hear God. And the\nline along which to develop it is known to us. Obey Christ. Natural Law,\nDegeneration, p. 119.\n\nFebruary 28th He who loves will rejoice in the Truth, rejoice not in what\nhe has been taught to believe; not in this Church's doctrine or in that;\nnot in this issue, or in that issue; but \"in the Truth.\" He will accept\nonly what is real; he will strive to get at facts; he will search for\nTruth with a humble and unbiassed mind, and cherish whatever he finds at\nany sacrifice. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nMarch 1st. \"Consider the lilies of the field how they grow.\" Christ made\nthe lilies and He made me--both on the same broad principle. Both\ntogether, man and flower . . .; but as men are dull at studying\nthemselves. He points to this companion-phenomenon to teach us how to\nlive a free and natural life, a life which God will unfold for us,\nwithout our anxiety, as He unfolds the flower. Natural Law, Growth, p.\n123.\n\nMarch 2d. Our efforts after Christian growth seem only a succession of\nfailures, and, instead of rising into the beauty of holiness, our life is\na daily heart-break and humiliation. Natural Law, Growth, p. 125.\n\nMarch 3d. The lilies grow, Christ says, of themselves; they toil not,\nneither do they spin. They grow, that is, automatically, spontaneously,\nwithout trying, without fretting, without thinking. Natural Law, Growth,\np. 126.\n\nMarch 4th. Violent efforts to grow are right in earnestness, but wholly\nwrong in principle. There is but one principle of growth both for the\nnatural and spiritual, for animal and plant, for body and soul. For all\ngrowth is an organic thing. And the principle of growing in grace is once\nmore this, \"Consider the lilies how they grow.\" Natural Law, Growth, p.\n125.\n\nMarch 5th. Earnest souls who are attempting sanctification by struggle,\ninstead of sanctification by faith, might be spared much humiliation by\nlearning the botany of the Sermon on the Mount. Natural Law, Growth, p.\n127.\n\nMarch 6th. There is only one thing greater than happiness in the world,\nand that is holiness; and it is not in our keeping; but what God HAS put\nin our power is the happiness of those about us, and that is largely to\nbe secured by our being kind to them. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nMarch 7th. We have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the\nhollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness of eloquence behind which\nlies no love. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nMarch 8th. Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy;\nunselfishness; good-temper; guilelessness; sincerity--these make up the\nsupreme gift, the stature of the perfect man. The Greatest Thing in the\nWorld.\n\nMarch 9th. We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man.\nWe make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ spoke much of peace on\nearth. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nMarch 10th. If God is spending work upon a Christian, let him be still\nand know that it is God. And if he wants work, he will find it there--in\nthe being still. Natural Law, Growth, p. 137.\n\nMarch 11th. If the amount of energy lost in trying to grow were spent in\nfulfilling rather the conditions of growth, we should have many more\ncubits to show for our stature. Natural Law, Growth, p. 137.\n\nMarch 12th. The conditions of growth, then, and the inward principle of\ngrowth being both supplied by Nature, the thing man has to do, the little\njunction left for him to complete, is to apply the one to the other. He\nmanufactures nothing; he earns nothing; he need be anxious for nothing;\nhis one duty is to be IN these conditions, to abide in them, to allow\ngrace to play over him, to be still and know that this is God. Natural\nLaw, Growth, p. 138.\n\nMarch 13th. A man will often have to wrestle with his God--but not for\ngrowth. The Christian life is a composed life. The Gospel is Peace. Yet\nthe most anxious people in the world are Christians--Christians who\nmisunderstand the nature of growth. Life is a perpetual self-condemning\nbecause they are not growing. Natural Law, Growth, p. 139.\n\nMarch 14th. All the work of the world is merely a taking advantage of\nenergies already there. Natural Law, Growth, p. 140.\n\nMarch 15th. Religion is not a strange or added thing; but the inspiration\nof the secular life, the breathing of an eternal spirit through this\ntemporal world. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nMarch 16th. The stature of the Lord Jesus was not itself reached by work,\nand he who thinks to approach its mystical height by anxious effort is\nreally receding from it. Natural Law, Growth, p. 127.\n\nMarch 17th. For the Life must develop out according to its type; and\nbeing a germ of the Christ-life, it must unfold into a Christ. Natural\nLaw, Growth, p. 129.\n\nMarch 18th. The sneer at the godly man for his imperfections is\nill-judged. A blade is a small thing. At first it grows very near the\nearth. It is often soiled and crushed and downtrodden. But it is a living\nthing,. . . and \"it doth not yet appear what it shall be.\" Natural Law,\nGrowth, p. 129.\n\nMarch 19th. Christ's protest is not against work, but against anxious\nthought. Natural Law, Growth, p. 136.\n\nMarch 20th. If God is adding to our spiritual stature, unfolding the new\nnature within us, it is a mistake to keep twitching at the petals with\nour coarse fingers. We must seek to let the Creative Hand alone. \"It is\nGod which giveth the increase.\" Natural Law, Growth, p. 137.\n\nMarch 21st. Love is PATIENCE. This is the normal attitude of Love; Love\npassive, Love waiting to begin; not in a hurry; calm; ready to do its\nwork when the summons comes, but meantime wearing the ornament of a meek\nand quiet spirit. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nMarch 22d. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ's life was spent in\ndoing kind things? The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nMarch 23d. I wonder why it is we are not all kinder than we are! How much\nthe world needs it. How easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts.\nHow infallibly it is remembered. How superabundantly it pays itself back\n--for there is no debtor in the world so honourable, so superbly\nhonourable as Love. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nMarch 24th. To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever\nis to live forever. Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound up with\nlove. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nMarch 25th. Man is a mass of correspondences, and because of these,\nbecause he is alive to countless objects and influences to which lower\norganisms are dead, he is the most living of all creatures. Natural Law,\nDeath, p. 155.\n\nMarch 26th. All organisms are living and dead--living to all within the\ncircumference of their correspondences, dead to all beyond. . . . Until\nman appears there is no organism to correspond with the whole\nenvironment. Natural Law, Death, p. 155.\n\nMarch 27th. Is man in correspondence with the whole environment or is he\nnot? . . . He is not. Of men generally it cannot be said that they are in\nliving contact with that part of the environment which is called the\nspiritual world. Natural Law, Death, p. 156.\n\nMarch 28th. The animal world and the plant world are the same world. They\nare different parts of one environment. And the natural and spiritual are\nlikewise one. Natural Law, Death, p. 157.\n\nMarch 29th. What we have correspondence with, that we call natural; what\nwe have little or no correspondence with, that we call Spiritual. Natural\nLaw, Death, p. 157.\n\nMarch 30th. Those who are in communion with God live, those who are not\nare dead. Natural Law, Death, p. 158.\n\nMarch 31st. This earthly mind may be of noble calibre, enriched by\nculture, high-toned, virtuous, and pure. But if it know not God? What\nthough its correspondences reach to the stars of heaven or grasp the\nmagnitudes of Time and Space? The stars of heaven are not heaven. Space\nis not God. Natural Law, Death, p. 158.\n\nApril 1st. We do not picture the possessor of this carnal mind as in any\nsense a monster. We have said he may be high-toned, virtuous, and pure.\nThe plant is not a monster because it is dead to the voice of the bird;\nnor is he a monster who is dead to the voice of God. The contention at\npresent simply is that he is DEAD. Natural Law, Death, p. 159.\n\nApril 2d. What is the creed of the Agnostic, but the confession of the\nspiritual numbness of humanity? Natural Law, Death, p. 160.\n\nApril 3d. The nescience of the Agnostic philosophy is the proof from\nexperience that to be carnally minded is Death. Natural Law, p. 161.\n\nApril 4th. The Christian apologist never further misses the mark than\nwhen he refuses the testimony of the Agnostic to himself. When the\nAgnostic tells me he is blind and deaf, dumb, torpid, and dead to the\nspiritual world, I must believe him. Jesus tells me that. Paul tells me\nthat. Science tells me that. He knows nothing of this outermost circle;\nand we are compelled to trust his sincerity as readily when he deplores\nit as if, being a man without an ear, he professed to know nothing of a\nmusical world, or being without taste, of a world of art. Natural Law,\nDeath, p. 160.\n\nApril 5th. It brings no solace to the unspiritual man to be told he is\nmistaken. To say he is self-deceived is neither to compliment him nor\nChristianity. He builds in all sincerity who raises his altar to the\nUNKNOWN God. He does not know God. With all his marvellous and complex\ncorrespondences, he is still one correspondence short. Natural Law,\nDeath, p. 161.\n\nApril 6th. Only one thing truly need the Christian envy, the large, rich,\ngenerous soul which \"envieth not.\" The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 7th. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other men doing\nthe same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy them not. The\nGreatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 8th. I say that man believes in a God, who feels himself in the\npresence of a Power which is not himself, and is immeasurably above\nhimself, a Power in the contemplation of which he is absorbed, in the\nknowledge of which he finds safety and happiness. Natural Law, Death, p.\n162.\n\nApril 9th. What men deny is not a God. It is the correspondence. The very\nconfession of the Unknowable is itself the dull recognition of an\nEnvironment beyond themselves, and for which they feel they lack the\ncorrespondence. It is this want that makes their God the Unknown God. And\nit is this that makes them DEAD. Natural Law, Death, p. 163.\n\nApril 10th. God is not confined to the outermost circle of environment,\nHe lives and moves and has His being in the whole. Those who only seek\nHim in the further zone can only find a part. The Christian who knows not\nGod in Nature, who does not, that is to say, correspond with the whole\nenvironment, most certainly is partially dead. Natural Law, Death, p.\n163.\n\nApril 11th. After you have been kind, after Love has stolen forth into\nthe world and done its beautiful work, go back into the shade again and\nsay nothing about it. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 12th. The absence of the true Light means moral Death. The darkness\nof the natural world to the intellect is not all. What history testifies\nto is, first the partial, and then the total eclipse of virtue that\nalways follows the abandonment of belief in a personal God. Natural Law,\nDeath, p. 167.\n\nApril 13th. The only greatness is unselfish love. . . . There is a great\ndifference between TRYING TO PLEASE and GIVING PLEASURE. The Greatest\nThing in the World.\n\nApril 14th. The conception of a God gives an altogether new colour to\nworldliness and vice. Worldliness it changes into heathenism, vice into\nblasphemy. The carnal mind, the mind which is turned away from God, which\nwill not correspond with God--this is not moral only but spiritual Death.\nAnd Sin, that which separates from God, which disobeys God, which CAN not\nin that state correspond with God--this is hell. Natural Law, Death, p.\n169.\n\nApril 15th. If sin is estrangement from God, this very estrangement is\nDeath. It is a want of correspondence. If sin is selfishness, it is\nconducted at the expense of life. Its wages are Death--\"he that loveth\nhis life,\" said Christ, \"shall lose it.\" Natural Law, Death, p. 170.\n\nApril 16th. Obviously if the mind turns away from one part of the\nenvironment it will only do so under some temptation to correspond with\nanother. This temptation, at bottom, can only come from one source--the\nlove of self. The irreligious man's correspondences are concentrated upon\nhimself. He worships himself. Self-gratification rather than self-denial;\nindependence rather than submission--these are the rules of life. And\nthis is at once the poorest and the commonest form of idolatry. Natural\nLaw, p. 170.\n\nApril 17th. You will find . . . that the people who influence you are\npeople who believe in you. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 18th. The development of any organism in any direction is dependent\non its environment. A living cell cut off from air will die. A seed-germ\napart from moisture and an appropriate temperature will make the ground\nits grave for centuries. Human nature, likewise, is subject to similar\nconditions. It can only develop in presence of its environment. No matter\nwhat its possibilities may be, no matter what seeds of thought or virtue,\nwhat germs of genius or of art, lie latent in its breast, until the\nappropriate environment present itself the correspondence is denied, the\ndevelopment discouraged, the most splendid possibilities of life remain\nunrealized, and thought and virtue, genius and art, are dead. Natural\nLaw, p. 171.\n\nApril 19th. The true environment of the moral life is God. Here\nconscience wakes. Here kindles love. Duty here becomes heroic; and that\nrighteousness begins to live which alone is to live forever. But if this\nAtmosphere is not, the dwarfed soul must perish for mere want of its\nnative air. And its Death is a strictly natural Death. It is not an\nexceptional judgment upon Atheism. In the same circumstances, in the same\naverted relation to their environment, the poet, the musician, the\nartist, would alike perish to poetry, to music, and to art. Natural Law,\np. 171.\n\nApril 20th. Every environment is a cause. Its effect upon me is exactly\nproportionate to my correspondence with it. If I correspond with part of\nit, part of myself is influenced. If I correspond with more, more of\nmyself is influenced; if with all, all is influenced. If I correspond\nwith the world, I become worldly; if with God, I become Divine. Natural\nLaw, Death, p. 171.\n\nApril 21st. You can dwarf a soul just as you can dwarf a plant, by\ndepriving it of a full environment. Such a soul for a time may have a\n\"name to live.\" Its character may betray no sign of atrophy. But its very\nvirtue somehow has the pallor of a flower that is grown in darkness, or\nas the herb which has never seen the sun, no fragrance breathes from its\nspirit. Natural Law, p. 173.\n\nApril 22d. I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing,\ntherefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human\nbeing, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall\nnot pass this way again. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 23d. There is no happiness in having and getting, but only in\ngiving . . . half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of\nhappiness. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 24th. No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not\ndrunkenness itself, does more to un-Christianize society than evil\ntemper. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 25th. How many prodigals are kept out of the Kingdom of God by the\nunlovely character of those who profess to be inside! The Greatest Thing\nin the World.\n\nApril 26th. A want of patience, a want of kindness, a want of generosity,\na want of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, are all instantaneously\nsymbolized in one flash of Temper. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 27th. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out, but\nby putting something in--a great Love, a new Spirit--the Spirit of\nChrist. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 28th. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours,\nsweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is\nwrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate\nthe inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men.\nChrist does. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 29th Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. And the\npossession of it is the great secret of personal influence. You will\nfind, if you think for a moment, that the people who influence you are\npeople who believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up;\nbut in that atmosphere they expand, and find encouragement and educative\nfellowship. The Greatest Thing in the World.\n\nApril 30th. Do not quarrel . . . with your lot in life. Do not complain\nof its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have\nto stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with. The\nGreatest Thing in the World.\n\nMay 1st. The moment the new life is begun there comes a genuine anxiety\nto break with the old. For the former environment has now become\nembarrassing. It refuses its dismissal from consciousness. It competes\ndoggedly with the new Environment for a share of the correspondences. And\nin a hundred ways the former traditions, the memories and passions of the\npast, the fixed associations and habits of the earlier life, now\ncomplicate the new relation. The complex and bewildered soul, in fact,\nfinds itself in correspondence with two environments, each with urgent\nbut yet incompatible claims. It is a dual soul living in a double world,\na world whose inhabitants are deadly enemies, and engaged in perpetual\ncivil war. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 179.\n\nMay 2d. How can the New Life deliver itself from the still-persistent\npast? A ready solution of the difficulty would be TO DIE. . . . If we\ncannot die altogether, . . . the most we can do is to die as much as we\ncan. . . . To die to any environment is to withdraw correspondence with\nit, to cut ourselves off, so far as possible, from all communication with\nit. So that the solution of the problem will simply be this, for the\nspiritual life to reverse continuously the processes of the natural life.\nNatural Law, Mortification, p. 180.\n\nMay 3d. The spiritual man having passed from Death unto Life, the natural\nman must next proceed to pass from Life unto Death. Having opened the new\nset of correspondences, he must deliberately close up the old.\nRegeneration in short must be accompanied by Degeneration. Natural Law,\nMortification, p. 181.\n\nMay 4th. The peculiar feature of Death by Suicide is that it is not only\nself-inflicted but sudden. And there are many sins which must either be\ndealt with suddenly or not at all. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 183.\n\nMay 5th. If the Christian is to \"live unto God,\" he must \"die unto sin.\"\nIf he does not kill sin, sin will inevitably kill him. Recognizing this,\nhe must set himself to reduce the number of his correspondences--\nretaining and developing those which lead to a fuller life,\nunconditionally withdrawing those which in any way tend in an opposite\ndirection. This stoppage of correspondences is a voluntary act, a\ncrucifixion of the flesh, a suicide. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 182.\n\nMay 6th. Do not resent temptation; do not be perplexed because it seems\nto thicken round you more and more, and ceases neither for effort nor for\nagony nor prayer. That is your practice. That is the practice which God\nappoints you; and it is having its work in making you patient, and\nhumble, and generous, and unselfish, and kind, and courteous. The\nGreatest Thing in the World.\n\nMay 7th. It is a peculiarity of the sinful state, that as a general rule\nmen are linked to evil mainly by a single correspondence. Few men break\nthe whole law. Our natures, fortunately, are not large enough to make us\nguilty of all, and the restraints of circumstances are usually such as to\nleave a loophole in the life of each individual for only a single\nhabitual sin. But it is very easy to see how this reduction of our\nintercourse with evil to a single correspondence blinds us to our true\nposition. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 186.\n\nMay 8th. One little weakness, we are apt to fancy, all men must be\nallowed, and we even claim a certain indulgence for that apparent\nnecessity of nature which we call our besetting sin. Yet to break with\nthe lower environment at all, to many, is to break at this single point.\nNatural Law, p. 186.\n\nMay 9th. There may be only one avenue between the new life and the old,\nit may be but a small and SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE, but this is sufficient to\nkeep the old life in. So long as that remains the victim is not \"dead\nunto sin,\" and therefore he cannot \"live unto God.\" Natural Law, p. 187.\n\nMay 10th. Do not grudge the hand that is moulding the still too shapeless\nimage within you. It is growing more beautiful, though you see it not,\nand every touch of temptation may add to its perfection. Therefore keep\nin the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men, and among\nthings, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles. The Greatest\nThing in the World.\n\nMay 11th. Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before\nthat mirror, reflect Christ's character, and you will be changed into the\nsame image from tenderness to tenderness. There is no other way. You\ncannot love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, and fall in\nlove with it, and grow into likeness to it. The Greatest Thing in the\nWorld.\n\nMay 12th. In the natural world it only requires a single vital\ncorrespondence of the body to be out of order to ensure Death. It is not\nnecessary to have consumption, diabetes, and an aneurism to bring the\nbody to the grave, if it have heart disease. He who is fatally diseased\nin one organ necessarily pays the penalty with his life, though all the\nothers be in perfect health. And such, likewise, are the mysterious unity\nand correlation of functions in the spiritual organism that the disease\nof one member may involve the ruin of the whole. Natural Law,\nMortification, p. 187.\n\nMay 13th. To break altogether, and at every point, with the old\nenvironment, is a simple impossibility. So long as the regenerate man is\nkept in this world he must find the old environment at many points a\nsevere temptation. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 190.\n\nMay 14th. Power over very many of the commonest temptations is only to be\nwon by degrees, and however anxious one might be to apply the summary\nmethod to every case, he soon finds it impossible in practice. Natural\nLaw, Mortification, p. 190.\n\nMay 15th. The ill-tempered person . . . can make very little of his\nenvironment. However he may attempt to circumscribe it in certain\ndirections, there will always remain a wide and ever-changing area to\nstimulate his irascibility. His environment, in short, is an inconstant\nquantity, and his most elaborate calculations and precautions must often\nand suddenly fail him. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 191.\n\nMay 16th. What the ill-tempered person has to deal with, . . . mainly, is\nthe correspondence, the temper itself. And that, he well knows, involves\na long and humiliating discipline. The case is not at all a surgical but\na medical one, and the knife is here of no more use than in a fever. A\nspecific irritant has poisoned his veins. And the acrid humours that are\nbreaking out all over the surface of his life are only to be subdued by a\ngradual sweetening of the inward spirit. Natural Law, Mortification, p.\n191.\n\nMay 17th. The man whose blood is pure has nothing to fear. So he whose\nspirit is purified and sweetened becomes proof against these germs of\nsin. \"Anger, wrath, malice and railing\" in such a soil can find no root.\nNatural Law, Mortification, p. 192.\n\nMay 18th. The Mortification of a member . . .is based on the Law of\nDegeneration. The useless member here is not cut off, but simply relieved\nas much as possible of all exercise. This encourages the gradual decay of\nthe parts, and as it is more and more neglected it ceases to be a channel\nfor life at all. So an organism \"mortifies\" its members. Natural Law,\nMortification, p. 193.\n\nMay 19th. Man's spiritual life consists in the number and fulness of his\ncorrespondences with God. In order to develop these he may be constrained\nto insulate them, to enclose them from the other correspondences, to shut\nhimself in with them. In many ways the limitation of the natural life is\nthe necessary condition of the full enjoyment of the spiritual life.\nNatural Law, Mortification, p. 195.\n\nMay 20th. No man is called to a life of self-denial for its own sake. It\nis in order to a compensation which, though sometimes difficult to see,\nis always real and always proportionate. No truth, perhaps, in practical\nreligion is more lost sight of. We cherish somehow a lingering rebellion\nagainst the doctrine of self-denial--as if our nature, or our\ncircumstances, or our conscience, dealt with us severely in loading us\nwith the daily cross. But is it not plain after all that the life of\nself-denial is the more abundant life--more abundant just in proportion\nto the ampler crucifixion of the narrower life? Is it not a clear case of\nexchange--an exchange, however, where the advantage is entirely on our\nside? We give up a correspondence in which there is a little life to\nenjoy a correspondence in which there is an abundant life. What though we\nsacrifice a hundred such correspondences? We make but the more room for\nthe great one that is left. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 195.\n\nMay 21st. Do not spoil your life at the outset with unworthy and\nimpoverishing correspondences; and if it is growing truly rich and\nabundant, be very jealous of ever diluting its high eternal quality with\nanything of earth. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 196.\n\nMay 22d. To concentrate upon a few great correspondences, to oppose to\nthe death the perpetual petty larceny of our life by trifles--these are\nthe conditions for the highest and happiest life. . . . The penalty of\nevading self-denial also is just that we get the lesser instead of the\nlarger good. The punishment of sin is inseparably bound up with itself.\nNatural Law, Mortification, p. 196.\n\nMay 23d. Each man has only a certain amount of life, of time, of\nattention--a definite measurable quantity. If he gives any of it to this\nlife solely it is wasted. Therefore Christ says, Hate life, limit life,\nlest you steal your love for it from something that deserves it more.\nNatural Law, Mortification, p. 197.\n\nMay 24th. To refuse to deny one's self is just to be left with the self\nundented. When the balance of life is struck, the self will be found\nstill there. The discipline of life was meant to destroy this self, but\nthat discipline having been evaded--and we all to some extent have\nopportunities, and too often exercise them, of taking the narrow path by\nthe shortest cuts--its purpose is baulked. But the soul is the loser. In\nseeking to gain its life it has really lost it. Natural Law,\nMortification, p. 196.\n\nMay 25th. Suppose we deliberately made up our minds as to what things we\nwere henceforth to allow to become our life? Suppose we selected a given\narea of our environment and determined once for all that our\ncorrespondences should go to that alone, fencing in this area all round\nwith a morally impassable wall? True, to others, we should seem to live a\npoorer life; they would see that our environment was circumscribed, and\ncall us narrow because it was narrow. But, well-chosen, this limited life\nwould be really the fullest life; it would be rich in the highest and\nworthiest, and poor in the smallest and basest, correspondences. Natural\nLaw, Mortification, p. 199.\n\nMay 26th. The well-defined spiritual life is not only the highest life,\nbut it is also the most easily lived. The whole cross is more easily\ncarried than the half. It is the man who tries to make the best of both\nworlds who makes nothing of either. And he who seeks to serve two masters\nmisses the benediction of both. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 199.\n\nMay 27th. You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the\nmoments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the\nmoments when you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scans\nthe past, above and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, there\nleap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to do\nunnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too trifling to\nspeak about, but which you feel have entered into your eternal life. The\nGreatest Thing in the World, p. 60.\n\nMay 28th. No man can become a saint in his sleep; and to fulfil the\ncondition required demands a certain amount of prayer and meditation and\ntime, just as improvement in any direction, bodily or mental, requires\npreparation and care. Address yourselves to that one thing; at any cost\nhave this transcendent character exchanged for yours. The Greatest Thing\nin the World, p. 60.\n\nMay 29th. He who has taken his stand, who has drawn a boundary line,\nsharp and deep, about his religious life, who has marked off all beyond\nas for ever forbidden ground to him, finds the yoke easy and the burden\nlight. For this forbidden environment comes to be as if it were not. His\nfaculties falling out of correspondence, slowly lose their sensibilities.\nAnd the balm of Death numbing his lower nature releases him for the\nscarce disturbed communion of a higher life. So even here to die is gain.\nNatural Law, Mortification, p. 199.\n\nMay 30th. Remain side by side with Him who loved us, and gave Himself for\nus, and you too will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive\nforce; and like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you will be\ndrawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of Love. Any man who\nfulfils that cause must have that effect produced in him. The Greatest\nThing in the World, p. 45.\n\nMay 31st. Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or\nby mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by natural law, or by\nsupernatural law, for all law is Divine. The Greatest Thing in the World,\np. 46.\n\nJune 1st. We love others, we love everybody, we love our enemies, because\nHe first loved us. . . . And that is how the love of God melts down the\nunlovely heart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient\nand humble and gentle and unselfish. The Greatest Thing in the World, p.\n46.\n\nJune 2d. The belief in Science as an aid to faith is not yet ripe enough\nto warrant men in searching there for witnesses to the highest Christian\ntruths. The inspiration of Nature, it is thought, extends to the humbler\ndoctrines alone. And yet the reverent inquirer who guides his steps in\nthe right direction may find even now, in the still dim twilight of the\nscientific world, much that will illuminate and intensify his sublimest\nfaith. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 204.\n\nJune 3d. Life becomes fuller and fuller, richer and richer, more and more\nsensitive and responsive to an ever-widening Environment as we rise in\nthe chain of being. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 207.\n\nJune 4th. Before we reach an Eternal Life we must pass beyond that point\nat which all ordinary correspondences inevitably cease. We must find an\norganism so high and complex, that at some point in its development it\nshall have added a correspondence which organic death is powerless to\narrest. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 213.\n\nJune 5th. Uninterrupted correspondence with a perfect Environment is\nEternal Life, according to Science. \"This is Life Eternal,\" said Christ,\n\"that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou\nhast sent.\" Life Eternal is to know God. To know God is to \"correspond\"\nwith God. To correspond with God is to correspond with a Perfect\nEnvironment. And the organism which attains to this, in the nature of\nthings, must live forever. Here is \"eternal existence and eternal\nknowledge.\" Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 215.\n\nJune 6th. To find a new Environment again and cultivate relation with it\nis to find a new Life. To live is to correspond, and to correspond is to\nlive. So much is true in Science. But it is also true in Religion. And it\nis of great importance to observe that to Religion also the conception of\nLife is a correspondence. No truth of Christianity has been more\nignorantly or wilfully travestied than the doctrine of Immortality. The\npopular idea, in spite of a hundred protests, is that Eternal Life is to\nlive forever. . . . We are told that Life Eternal is not to live. This is\nLife Eternal--TO KNOW. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 216.\n\nJune 7th. From time to time the taunt is thrown at Religion, not unseldom\nfrom lips which Science ought to have taught more caution, that the\nFuture Life of Christianity is simply a prolonged existence, an eternal\nmonotony, a blind and indefinite continuance of being. The Bible never\ncould commit itself to any such empty platitude; nor could Christianity\never offer to the world a hope so colourless. Not that Eternal Life has\nnothing to do with everlastingness. That is part of the conception. And\nit is this aspect of the question that first arrests us in the field of\nScience. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 216.\n\nJune 8th. Science speaks to us indeed of much more than numbers of years.\nIt defines degrees of Life. It explains a widening Environment. It\nunfolds the relation between a widening Environment and increasing\ncomplexity in organisms. And if it has no absolute contribution to the\ncontent of Religion, its analogies are not limited to a point. It yields\nto Immortality, and this is the most that Science can do in any case, the\nbroad framework for a doctrine. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 217.\n\nJune 9th. To correspond with the God of Science, the Eternal Unknowable,\nwould be everlasting existence; to correspond with \"the true God and\nJesus Christ,\" is Eternal Life. The quality of the Eternal Life alone\nmakes the heaven; mere everlastingness might be no boon. Even the brief\nspan of the temporal life is too long for those who spend its years in\nsorrow. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 220.\n\nJune 10th. To Christianity, \"he that hath the Son of God hath Life, and\nhe that hath not the Son hath not Life.\" This, as we take it, defines the\ncorrespondence which is to bridge the grave. This is the clue to the\nnature of the Life that lies at the back of the spiritual organism. And\nthis is the true solution of the mystery of Eternal Life. Natural Law,\nEternal Life, p. 227.\n\nJune 11th. The relation between the spiritual man and his Environment is,\nin theological language, a filial relation. With the new Spirit, the\nfilial correspondence, he knows the Father--and this is Life Eternal.\nNatural Law, Eternal Life, p. 229.\n\nJune 12th. It takes the Divine to know the Divine--but in no more\nmysterious sense than it takes the human to understand the human. The\nanalogy, indeed, for the whole field here has been finely expressed\nalready by Paul: \"What man,\" he asks, \"knoweth the things of a man, save\nthe spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no\nman, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the\nworld, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that\nare freely given to us of God.\"--I. Cor. ii. 11, 12. Natural Law, Eternal\nLife, p. 229.\n\nJune 13th. To go outside what we call Nature is not to go outside\nEnvironment. Nature, the natural Environment, is only a part of\nEnvironment. There is another large part, which, though some profess to\nhave no correspondence with it, is not on that account unreal, or even\nunnatural. The mental and moral world is unknown to the plant. But it is\nreal. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 232.\n\nJune 14th. Things are natural or supernatural simply according to where\none stands. Man is supernatural to the mineral; God is supernatural to\nthe man. When a mineral is seized upon by the living plant and elevated\nto the organic kingdom, no trespass against Nature is committed. It\nmerely enters a larger Environment, which before was supernatural to it,\nbut which now is entirely natural. When the heart of a man, again, is\nseized upon by the quickening Spirit of God, no further violence is done\nto natural law. It is another case of the inorganic, so to speak, passing\ninto the organic. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 232.\n\nJune 15th. Correspondence in any case is the gift of Environment. The\nnatural Environment gives men their natural faculties; the spiritual\naffords them their spiritual faculties. It is natural for the spiritual\nEnvironment to supply the spiritual faculties; it would be quite\nunnatural for the natural Environment to do it. The natural law of\nBio-genesis forbids it; the moral fact that the finite cannot comprehend\nthe Infinite is against it; the spiritual principle that flesh and blood,\ncannot inherit the Kingdom of God renders it absurd. Natural Law, Eternal\nLife, p. 233.\n\nJune 16th. Organisms are not added to by accretion, as in the case of\nminerals, but by growth. And the spiritual faculties are organized in the\nspiritual protoplasm of the soul, just as other faculties are organized\nin the protoplasm of the body. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 233.\n\nJune 17th. It ought to be placed in the forefront of all Christian\nteaching that Christ's mission on earth was to give men Life. \"I am\ncome,\" He said, \"that ye might have Life, and that ye might have it more\nabundantly.\" And that He meant literal Life, literal spiritual and\nEternal Life, is clear from the whole course of His teaching and acting.\nNatural Law, Eternal Life, p. 235.\n\nJune 18th. The effort to detect the living Spirit must be at least as\nidle as the attempt to subject protoplasm to microscopic examination in\nthe hope of discovering Life. We are warned, also, not to expect too\nmuch. \"Thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.\" Natural\nLaw, Eternal Life, p. 237.\n\nJune 19th. Many men would be religious if they knew where to begin; many\nwould be more religious if they were sure where it would end. It is not\nindifference that keeps some men from God, but ignorance. \"Good Master,\nwhat must I do to inherit Eternal Life?\" is still the deepest question of\nthe age. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 237.\n\nJune 20th. The voice of God and the voice of Nature. I cannot be wrong if\nI listen to them. Sometimes, when uncertain of a voice from its very\nloudness, we catch the missing syllable in the echo. In God and Nature we\nhave Voice and Echo. When I hear both, I am assured. My sense of hearing\ndoes not betray me twice. I recognize the Voice in the Echo, the Echo\nmakes me certain of the Voice; I listen and I know. Natural Law, Eternal\nLife, p. 238.\n\nJune 21st. The soul is a living organism. And for any question as\nto the soul's Life we must appeal to Life-science. And what does the\nLife-science teach? That if I am to inherit Eternal Life, I must\ncultivate a correspondence with the Eternal. Natural Law, Eternal Life,\np. 239.\n\nJune 22d. All knowledge lies in Environment. When I want to know about\nminerals I go to minerals. When I want to know about flowers I go to\nflowers. And they tell me. In their own way they speak to me, each in its\nown way, and each for itself--not the mineral for the flower, which is\nimpossible, nor the flower for the mineral, which is also impossible. So\nif I want to know about Man, I go to his part of the Environment. And he\ntells me about himself, not as the plant or the mineral, for he is\nneither, but in his own way. And if I want to know about God, I go to His\npart of the Environment. And He tells me about Himself, not as a Man, for\nHe is not Man, but in His own way. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 239.\n\nJune 23d. Just as naturally as the flower and the mineral and the Man,\neach in their own way, tell me about themselves, He tells me about\nHimself. He very strangely condescends indeed in making things plain to\nme, actually assuming for a time the Form of a Man that I at my poor\nlevel may better see Him. This is my opportunity to know Him. This\nincarnation is God making Himself accessible to human thought--God\nopening to Man the possibility of correspondence through Jesus Christ.\nNatural Law, Eternal Life, p. 240.\n\nJune 24th. Having opened correspondence with the Eternal Environment, the\nsubsequent stages are in the line of all other normal development. We\nhave but to continue, to deepen, to extend, and to enrich the\ncorrespondence that has been begun. And we shall soon find to our\nsurprise that this is accompanied by another and parallel process. The\naction is not all upon our side. The Environment also will be found to\ncorrespond. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 241.\n\nJune 25th. Let us look for the influence of Environment on the spiritual\nnature of him who has opened correspondence with God. Reaching out his\neager and quickened faculties to the spiritual world around him, shall he\nnot become spiritual? In vital contact with Holiness, shall he not become\nholy? Breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable Purity, shall he miss\nbecoming pure? Walking with God from day to day, shall he fail to be\ntaught of God? Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 242.\n\nJune 26th. Growth in grace is sometimes described as a strange, mystical,\nand unintelligible process. It is mystical, but neither strange nor\nunintelligible. It proceeds according to Natural Law, and the leading\nfactor in sanctification is Influence of Environment. Natural Law,\nEternal Life, p. 242.\n\nJune 27th. Will the evolutionist who admits the regeneration of the frog\nunder the modifying influence of a continued correspondence with a new\nenvironment, care to question the possibility of the soul acquiring such\na faculty as that of Prayer, the marvellous breathing-function of the new\ncreature, when in contact with the atmosphere of a besetting God? Is the\nchange from the earthly to the heavenly more mysterious than the change\nfrom the aquatic to the terrestrial mode of life? Is Evolution to stop\nwith the organic? If it be objected that it has taken ages to perfect the\nfunction in the batrachian, the reply is, that it will take ages to\nperfect the function in the Christian. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 244.\n\nJune 28th. We have indeed spoken of the spiritual correspondence as\nalready perfect--but it is perfect only as the bud is perfect. \"It doth\nnot yet appear what it shall be,\" any more than it appeared a million\nyears ago what the evolving batrachian would be. Natural Law, Eternal\nLife, p. 244.\n\nJune 29th. In a sense, all that belongs to Time belongs also to Eternity;\nbut these lower correspondences are in their nature unfitted for an\nEternal Life. Even if they were perfect in their relation to their\nEnvironment, they would still not be Eternal. . . . An Eternal Life\ndemands an Eternal Environment. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 245.\n\nJune 30th. The final preparation . . . for the inheriting of Eternal Life\nmust consist in the abandonment of the non-eternal elements. These must\nbe unloosed and dissociated from the higher elements, And this is\neffected by a closing catastrophe--Death. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p.\n248.\n\nJuly 1st. \"Perfect correspondence,\" according to Mr. Herbert Spencer,\nwould be \"perfect Life.\" To abolish Death, therefore, all that would be\nnecessary would be to abolish Imperfection. But it is the claim of\nChristianity that it can abolish Death. And it is significant to notice\nthat it does so by meeting this very demand of Science--it abolishes\nImperfection. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 249.\n\nJuly 2d. The part of the organism which begins to get out of\ncorrespondence with the Organic Environment is the only part which is in\nvital correspondence with it. Though a fatal disadvantage to the natural\nman to be thrown out of correspondence with this Environment, it is of\ninestimable importance to the spiritual man. For so long as it is\nmaintained the way is barred for a further Evolution. And hence the\ncondition necessary for the further Evolution is that the spiritual be\nreleased from the natural. That is to say, the condition of the further\nEvolution is Death. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 249.\n\nJuly 3d. The sifting of the correspondences is done by Nature. This is\nits last and greatest contribution to mankind. Over the mouth of the\ngrave the perfect and the imperfect submit to their final separation.\nEach goes to its own--earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,\nSpirit to Spirit. \"The dust shall return to the earth as it was; and the\nSpirit shall return unto God who gave it.\" Natural Law, Eternal Life, p.\n249.\n\nJuly 4th. Few things are less understood than the conditions of the\nspiritual life. The distressing incompetence of which most of us are\nconscious in trying to work out our spiritual experience is due perhaps\nless to the diseased will which we commonly blame for it than to\nimperfect knowledge of the right conditions. It does not occur to us how\nnatural the spiritual is. We still strive for some strange transcendent\nthing; we seek to promote life by methods as unnatural as they prove\nunsuccessful; and only the utter incomprehensibility of the whole region\nprevents us seeing fully--what we already half-suspect--how completely we\nare missing the road. Natural Law, Environment, p. 256.\n\nJuly 5th. Living in the spiritual world . . . is just as simple as living\nin the natural world; and it is the same kind of simplicity. It is the\nsame kind of simplicity for it is the same kind of world--there are not\ntwo kinds of worlds. The conditions of life in the one are the conditions\nof life in the other. And till these conditions are sensibly grasped, as\nthe conditions of all life, it is impossible that the personal effort\nafter the highest life should be other than a blind struggle carried on\nin fruitless sorrow and humiliation. Natural Law, Environment, p. 257.\n\nJuly 6th. Heredity and Environment are the master-influences of the\norganic world. These have made all of us what we are. These forces are\nstill ceaselessly playing upon all our lives. And he who truly\nunderstands these influences; he who has decided how much to allow to\neach; he who can regulate new forces as they arise, or adjust them to the\nold, so directing them as at one moment to make them cooperate, at\nanother to counteract one another, understands the rationale of personal\ndevelopment. Natural Law, Environment, p. 255.\n\nJuly 7th. To seize continuously the opportunity of more and more perfect\nadjustment to better and higher conditions, to balance some inward evil\nwith some purer influence acting from without, in a word to make our\nEnvironment at the same time that it is making us--these are the secrets\nof a well-ordered and successful life. Natural Law, Environment, p. 256.\n\nJuly 8th. In the spiritual world . . . the subtle influences which form\nand transform the soul are Heredity and Environment. And here especially,\nwhere all is invisible, where much that we feel to be real is yet so ill\ndefined, it becomes of vital practical moment to clarify the atmosphere\nas far as possible with conceptions borrowed from the natural life.\nNatural Law, Environment, p. 256.\n\nJuly 9th. What Heredity has to do for us is determined outside ourselves.\nNo man can select his own parents. But every man to some extent can\nchoose his own Environment. His relation to it, however largely\ndetermined by Heredity in the first instance, is always open to\nalteration. And so great is his control over Environment and so radical\nits influence over him, that he can so direct it as either to undo,\nmodify, perpetuate, or intensify the earlier hereditary influences within\ncertain limits. Natural Law, Environment, p. 257.\n\nJuly 10th. One might show how the moral man is acted upon and changed\ncontinuously by the influences, secret and open, of his surroundings, by\nthe tone of society, by the company he keeps, by his occupation, by the\nbooks he reads, by Nature, by all, in short, that constitutes the\nhabitual atmosphere of his thoughts and the little world of his daily\nchoice. Or one might go deeper still and prove how the spiritual life\nalso is modified from outside sources--its health or disease, its growth\nor decay, all its changes for better or for worse being determined by the\nvarying and successive circumstances in which the religious habits are\ncultivated. Natural Law, Environment, p. 260.\n\nJuly 11th. In the spiritual world . . . he will be wise who courts\nacquaintance with the most ordinary and transparent facts of Nature; and\nin laying the foundations for a religious life he will make no unworthy\nbeginning who carries with him an impressive sense of so obvious a truth\nas that without Environment there can be no life. Natural Law,\nEnvironment, p. 264.\n\nJuly 12th. There is in the spiritual organism a principle of life; but\nthat is not self-existent. It requires a second factor, a something in\nwhich to live and move and have its being, an Environment. Without this\nit cannot live or move or have any being. Without Environment the soul is\nas the carbon without the oxygen, as the fish without the water, as the\nanimal frame without the extrinsic conditions of vitality. Natural Law,\nEnvironment, p. 264.\n\nJuly 13th. What is the Spiritual Environment? It is God. Without this,\ntherefore, there is no life, no thought, no energy, nothing---\"without Me\nye can do nothing.\" Natural Law, Environment, p. 265.\n\nJuly 14th. The cardinal error in the religious life is to attempt to live\nwithout an Environment. Spiritual experience occupies itself, not too\nmuch, but too exclusively, with one factor--the soul. We delight in\ndissecting this much-tortured faculty, from time to time, in search of a\ncertain something which we call our faith--forgetting that faith is but\nan attitude, an empty hand for grasping an environing Presence. Natural\nLaw, Environment, p 265.\n\nJuly 15th. When we feel the need of a power by which to overcome the\nworld, how often do we not seek to generate it within ourselves by some\nforced process, some fresh girding of the will, some strained activity\nwhich only leaves the soul in further exhaustion? Natural Law,\nEnvironment, p. 265.\n\nJuly 16th. To examine ourselves is good; but useless unless we also\nexamine Environment. To bewail our weakness is right, but not remedial.\nThe cause must be investigated as well as the result. And yet, because we\nnever see the other half of the problem, our failures even fail to\ninstruct us. After each new collapse we begin our life anew, but on the\nold conditions; and the attempt ends as usual in the repetition--in the\ncircumstances the inevitable repetition--of the old disaster. Natural\nLaw, Environment, p. 265.\n\nJuly 17th. After seasons of much discouragement, with the sore sense upon\nus of our abject feebleness, we do confer with ourselves, insisting for\nthe thousandth time, \"My soul, wait thou only upon God.\" But, the lesson\nis soon forgotten. The strength supplied we speedily credit to our own\nachievement; and even the temporary success is mistaken for a symptom of\nimproved inward vitality. Once more we become self-existent. Once more we\ngo on living without an Environment. And once more, after days of wasting\nwithout repairing, of spending without replenishing, we begin to perish\nwith hunger, only returning to God again, as a last resort, when we have\nreached starvation point. Natural Law, Environment, p. 266.\n\nJuly 18th. Why this unscientific attempt to sustain life for weeks at a\ntime without an Environment? It is because we have never truly seen the\nnecessity for an Environment. We have not been working with a principle.\nWe are told to \"wait only upon God,\" but we do not know why. It has never\nbeen as clear to us that without God the soul will die as that without\nfood the body will perish. In short, we have never comprehended the\ndoctrine of the Persistence of Force. Instead of being content to\ntransform energy we have tried to create it. Natural Law, Environment, p.\n266.\n\nJuly 19th. Whatever energy the soul expends must first be \"taken into it\nfrom without.\" We are not Creators, but creatures; God is our refuge AND\nSTRENGTH. Communion with God, therefore, is a scientific necessity; and\nnothing will more help the defeated spirit which is struggling in the\nwreck of its religious life than a common-sense hold of this biological\nprinciple that without Environment he can do nothing. Natural Law,\nEnvironment, p. 267.\n\nJuly 20th. Who has not come to the conclusion that he is but a part, a\nfraction of some larger whole? Who does not miss, at every turn of his\nlife, an absent God? That man is but a part, he knows, for there is room\nin him for more. That God is the other part, he feels, because at times\nHe satisfies his need. Who does not tremble often under that sicklier\nsymptom of his incompleteness, his want of spiritual energy, his\nhelplessness with sin? But now he understands both--the void in his life,\nthe powerlessness of his will. He understands that, like all other\nenergy, Spiritual power is contained in Environment. He finds here at\nlast the true root of all human frailty, emptiness, nothingness, sin.\nThis is why \"without Me ye can do nothing.\" Powerlessness is the normal\nstate, not only of this, but of every organism--of every organism apart\nfrom its Environment. Natural Law, p. 268.\n\nJuly 21st. Friendship is the nearest thing we know to what religion is.\nGod is love. And to make religion akin to Friendship is simply to give it\nthe highest expression conceivable by man. The Changed Life, p. 49.\n\nJuly 22d. The entire dependence of the soul upon God is not an\nexceptional mystery, nor is man's helplessness an arbitrary and\nunprecedented phenomenon. It is the law of all Nature. The spiritual man\nis not taxed beyond the natural. He is not purposely handicapped by\nsingular limitations or unusual incapacities. God has not designedly made\nthe religious life as hard as possible. The arrangements for the\nspiritual life are the same as for the natural life. When, in their hours\nof unbelief, men challenge their Creator for placing the obstacle of\nhuman frailty in the way of their highest development, their protest is\nagainst the order of Nature. Natural Law, p. 269.\n\nJuly 23d. The organism must either depend on his environment, or be\nself-sufficient. But who will not rather approve the arrangement by which\nman in his creatural life may have unbroken access to an Infinite Power?\nWhat soul will seek to remain self-luminous when it knows that \"The Lord\nGod is a Sun?\" Who will not willingly exchange his shallow vessel for\nChrist's well of living water. Natural Law, p. 270.\n\nJuly 24th. The New Testament is nowhere more impressive than where it\ninsists on the fact of man's dependence. In its view the first step in\nreligion is for man to feel his helplessness. Christ's first beatitude is\nto the poor in spirit. The condition of entrance into the spiritual\nkingdom is to possess the child-spirit--that state of mind combining at\nonce the profoundest helplessness with the most artless feeling of\ndependence. Natural Law, p. 271.\n\nJuly 25th. Fruit-bearing without Christ is not an improbability, but an\nimpossibility. As well expect the natural fruit to flourish without air\nand heat, without soil and sunshine. How thoroughly also Paul grasped\nthis truth is apparent from a hundred pregnant passages in which he\nechoes his Master's teaching. To him life was hid with Christ in God. And\nthat he embraced this, not as a theory but as an experimental truth, we\ngather from his constant confession, \"When I am weak, then am I strong.\"\nNatural Law, p. 271.\n\nJuly 26th. One result of the due apprehension of our personal\nhelplessness will be that we shall no longer waste our time over the\nimpossible task of manufacturing energy for ourselves. Our science will\nbring to an abrupt end the long series of severe experiments in which we\nhave indulged in the hope of finding a perpetual motion. And having\ndecided upon this once for all, our first step in seeking a more\nsatisfactory state of things must be to find a new source of energy.\nFollowing Nature, only one course is open to us. We must refer to\nEnvironment. The natural life owes all to Environment, so must the\nspiritual. Now the Environment of the spiritual life is God. As Nature,\ntherefore, forms the complement of the natural life. God is the\ncomplement of the spiritual. Natural Law, p. 272.\n\nJuly 27th. Do not think that nothing is happening because you do not see\nyourself grow, or hear the whirr of the machinery. All great things grow\nnoiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child. Mr. Darwin\ntells us that Evolution proceeds by \"numerous, successive, and slight\nmodifications.\" The Changed Life, p. 54.\n\nJuly 28th. We fail to praise the ceaseless ministry of the great\ninanimate world around us only because its kindness is unobtrusive.\nNature is always noiseless. All her greatest gifts are given in secret.\nAnd we forget how truly every good and perfect gift comes from without,\nand from above, because no pause in her changeless beneficence teaches us\nthe sad lessons of deprivation. Natural Law, p. 274.\n\nJuly 29th. It is not a strange thing for the soul to find its life in\nGod. This is its native air. God as the Environment of the soul has been\nfrom the remotest age the doctrine of all the deepest thinkers in\nreligion. How profoundly Hebrew poetry is saturated with this high\nthought will appear when we try to conceive of it with this left out.\nNatural Law, p. 374.\n\nJuly 30th. The alternatives of the intellectual life are Christianity or\nAgnosticism. The Agnostic is right when he trumpets his incompleteness.\nHe who is not complete in Him must be for ever incomplete. Natural Law,\np. 278.\n\nJuly 31st. The problems of the heart and conscience are infinitely more\nperplexing than those of the intellect. Has love no future? Has right no\ntriumph? Is the unfinished self to remain unfinished? The alternatives\nare two, Christianity or Pessimism. But when we ascend the further height\nof the religious nature, the crisis comes. There, without Environment,\nthe darkness is unutterable. So maddening now becomes the mystery that\nmen are compelled to construct an Environment for themselves. No\nEnvironment here is unthinkable. An altar of some sort men must have--\nGod, or Nature, or Law. But the anguish of Atheism is only a negative\nproof of man's incompleteness. Natural Law, p. 279.\n\nAugust 1st. A photograph prints from the negative only while exposed to\nthe sun. While the artist is looking to see how it is getting on he\nsimply stops the getting on. Whatever of wise supervision the soul may\nneed, it is certain it can never be over-exposed, or that, being exposed,\nanything else in the world can improve the result or quicken it. The\nChanged Life, pp. 56, 57.\n\nAugust 2d. What a very strange thing, is it not, for man to pray? It is\nthe symbol at once of his littleness and of his greatness. Here the sense\nof imperfection, controlled and silenced in the narrower reaches of his\nbeing, becomes audible. Now he must utter himself. The sense of need is\nso real, and the sense of Environment, that he calls out to it,\naddressing it articulately, and imploring it to satisfy his need. Surely\nthere is nothing more touching in Nature than this? Man could never so\nexpose himself, so break through all constraint, except from a dire\nnecessity. Natural Law, p. 279.\n\nAugust 3d. What is Truth? The natural Environment answers, \"Increase of\nKnowledge increaseth Sorrow,\" and \"much study is a Weariness.\" Christ\nreplies, \"Learn of Me, and ye shall find Rest.\" Contrast the world's word\n\"Weariness\" with Christ's word \"Rest.\" No other teacher since the world\nbegan has ever associated \"learn\" with \"Rest.\" Learn of me, says the\nphilosopher, and you shall find Restlessness. Learn of Me, says Christ,\nand ye shall find Rest. Natural Law, p. 280.\n\nAugust 4th. Men will have to give up the experiment of attempting to live\nin half an Environment. Half an Environment will give but half a Life.\n. . . He whose correspondences are with this world alone has only a\nthousandth part, a fraction, the mere rim and shade of an Environment,\nand only the fraction of a Life. How long will it take Science to believe\nits own creed, that the material universe we see around us is only a\nfragment of the universe we do not see? Natural Law, p. 282.\n\nAugust 5th. The Life of the senses, high and low, may perfect itself in\nNature. Even the Life of thought may find a large complement in\nsurrounding things. But the higher thought, and the conscience, and the\nreligious Life, can only perfect themselves in God. Natural Law, p. 283.\n\nAugust 6th. To make the influence of Environment stop with the natural\nworld is to doom the spiritual nature to death. For the soul, like the\nbody, can never perfect itself in isolation. The law for both is to be\ncomplete in the appropriate Environment. Natural Law, p. 283.\n\nAugust 7th. Take into your new sphere of labour, where you also mean to\nlay down your life, that simple charm, Love, and your life-work must\nsucceed. You can take nothing greater, you need take nothing less. It is\nnot worth while going if you take anything less. The Greatest Thing in\nthe World, p. 17.\n\nAugust 8th. Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is\nsaid to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to\nlove. Love CANNOT behave itself unseemly. You can put the most untutored\npersons into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir of Love in\ntheir heart, they will not behave themselves unseemly. They simply cannot\ndo it. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 26.\n\nAugust 9th. I believe that Christ's yoke is easy. Christ's \"yoke\" is just\nHis way of taking life. And I believe it is an easier way than any other.\nI believe it is a happier way than any other. The most obvious lesson in\nChrist's teaching is that there is no happiness in having and getting\nanything, but only in giving. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 29.\n\nAugust 10th. Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of\nhappiness. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being\nserved by others. It consists in giving, and in serving others. He that\nwould be great among you, said Christ, let him serve. He that would be\nhappy, let him remember that there is but one way--it is more blessed, it\nis more happy, to give than to receive. The Greatest Thing in the World,\np. 30.\n\nAugust 11th. \"Love is not easily provoked.\" . . . We are inclined to look\nupon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as a mere\ninfirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a\nthing to take into very serious account in estimating a man's character.\nAnd yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a\nplace; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it as one of the\nmost destructive elements in human nature. The Greatest Thing in the\nWorld, p. 30.\n\nAugust 12th. The peculiarity of ill-temper is that it is the vice of the\nvirtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You\nknow men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely\nperfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or \"touchy\"\ndisposition. This compatibility of ill-temper with high moral character\nis one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics. The Greatest\nThing in the World, p. 31.\n\nAugust 13th. What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a good\nmusician? Practice. . . . What makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing\nelse. There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul\nin different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the\nbody and the mind. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 40.\n\nAugust 14th. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich,\nstrong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian\ncharacter--the Christ-like nature in its fullest development. And the\nconstituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless\npractice. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 41.\n\nAugust 15th. We know but little now about the conditions of the life that\nis to come. But what is certain is that Love must last. God, the Eternal\nGod, is Love. Covet, therefore, that everlasting gift. The Greatest Thing\nin the World, p. 54.\n\nAugust 16th. To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love\nforever is to live forever. Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound up\nwith love. . . . Love must be eternal. It is what God is. The Greatest\nThing in the World, pp. 57, 58.\n\nAugust 17th. When a man becomes a Christian the natural process is this:\nThe Living Christ enters into his soul. Development begins. The\nquickening Life seizes upon the soul, assimilates surrounding elements,\nand begins to fashion it. According to the great Law of Conformity to\nType this fashioning takes a specific form. It is that of the Artist who\nfashions. And all through Life this wonderful, mystical, glorious, yet\nperfectly definite, process, goes on \"until Christ be formed\" in it.\nNatural Law, p. 294.\n\nAugust 18th. The Christian Life is not a vague effort after\nrighteousness--an ill-defined, pointless struggle for an ill-defined,\npointless end. Religion is no dishevelled mass of aspiration, prayer, and\nfaith. There is no more mystery in Religion as to its processes than in\nBiology. Natural Law, p. 294.\n\nAugust 19th. There is much mystery in Biology. \"We know all but nothing\nof Life\" yet, nothing of development. There is the same mystery in the\nspiritual Life. But the great lines are the same, as decided, as\nluminous; and the laws of natural and spiritual are the same, as\nunerring, as simple. Will everything else in the natural world unfold its\norder, and yield to Science more and more a vision of harmony, and\nReligion, which should complement and perfect all, remain a chaos?\nNatural Law, p. 294.\n\nAugust 20th. When one attempts to sanctify himself by effort, he is\ntrying to make his boat go by pushing against the mast. He is like a\ndrowning man trying to lift himself out of the water by pulling at the\nhair of his own head. Christ held up this method almost to ridicule when\nHe said: \"Which of you by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature?\"\nThe one redeeming feature of the self-sufficient method is this--that\nthose who try it find out almost at once that it will not gain the goal.\nThe Changed Life, p. 11.\n\nAugust 21st. The Image of Christ that is forming within us--that is\nlife's one charge. Let every project stand aside for that. \"Till Christ\nbe formed,\" no man's work is finished, no religion crowned, no life has\nfulfilled its end. The Changed Life, p. 62.\n\nAugust 22d. Our companionship with Him, like all true companionship, is a\nspiritual communion. All friendship, all love, human and Divine, is\npurely spiritual. It was after He was risen that He influenced even the\ndisciples most. The Changed Life, p. 38.\n\nAugust 23d. Make Christ your most constant companion. Be more under His\ninfluence than under any other influence. Ten minutes spent in His\nsociety every day, ay, two minutes if it be face to face, and heart to\nheart, will make the whole day different. Every character has an inward\nspring, let Christ be it. Every action has a key-note, let Christ set it.\nThe Changed Life, p. 40.\n\nAugust 24th. Under the right conditions it is as natural for character to\nbecome beautiful as for a flower; and if on God's earth there is not some\nmachinery for effecting it, the supreme gift to the world has been\nforgotten. This is simply what man was made for. With Browning: \"I say\nthat Man was made to grow, not stop.\" The Changed Life, p. 10.\n\nAugust 25th. How can modern men today make Christ, the absent Christ,\ntheir most constant companion still? The answer is that Friendship is a\nspiritual thing. It is independent of Matter, or Space, or Time. That\nwhich I love in my friend is not that which I see. What influences me in\nmy friend is not his body but his spirit. The Changed Life, p. 37.\n\nAugust 26th. Love should be the supreme thing--because it is going to\nlast; because in the nature of things it is an Eternal Life. It is a\nthing that we are living now, not that we get when we die; that we shall\nhave a poor chance of getting when we die unless we are living now. The\nGreatest Thing in the World, p. 58.\n\nAugust 27th. When will it be seen that the characteristic of the\nChristian Religion is its Life, that a true theology must begin with a\nBiology? Theology is the Science of God. Why will men treat God as\ninorganic? Natural Law, p. 297.\n\nAugust 28th. We should be forsaking the lines of nature were we to\nimagine for a moment that the new creature was to be formed out of\nnothing. Nothing can be made out of nothing. Matter is uncreatable and\nindestructible; Nature and man can only form and transform. Hence when a\nnew animal is made, no new clay is made. Life merely enters into already\nexisting matter, assimilates more of the same sort and rebuilds it. The\nspiritual Artist works in the same way. He must have a peculiar kind of\nprotoplasm, a basis of life, and that must be already existing. Natural\nLaw, p. 297.\n\nAugust 29th. However active the intellectual or moral life may be, from\nthe point of view of this other Life it is dead. That which is flesh is\nflesh. It wants, that is to say, the kind of Life which constitutes the\ndifference between the Christian and the not-a-Christian, It has not yet\nbeen \"born of the Spirit.\" Natural Law, p. 299.\n\nAugust 30th. The protoplasm in man has a something in addition to its\ninstincts or its habits. It has a capacity for God. In this capacity for\nGod lies its receptivity; it is the very protoplasm that was necessary.\nThe chamber is not only ready to receive the new Life, but the Guest is\nexpected, and, till He comes, is missed. Till then the soul longs and\nyearns, wastes and pines, waving its tentacles piteously in the empty\nair, feeling after God if so be that it may find Him. This is not\npeculiar to the protoplasm of the Christian's soul. In every land and in\nevery age there have been altars to the Known or Unknown God. Natural\nLaw, p. 300.\n\nAugust 31st. It is now agreed as a mere question of anthropology that the\nuniversal language of the human soul has always been \"I perish with\nhunger.\" This is what fits it for Christ. There is a grandeur in this cry\nfrom the depths which makes its very unhappiness sublime. Natural Law, p.\n300.\n\nSeptember 1st. In reflecting the character of Christ, it is no real\nobstacle that we may never have been in visible contact with Himself.\nMany men know Dante better than their own fathers. He influences them\nmore. As a spiritual presence he is more near to them, as a spiritual\nforce more real. Is there any reason why a greater than . . . Dante\nshould not also instruct, inspire, and mould the characters of men? The\nChanged Life, pp. 38, 52.\n\nSeptember 2d. Mark this distinction. . . . Imitation is mechanical,\nreflection organic. The one is occasional, the other habitual. In the one\ncase, man comes to God and imitates Him; in the other, God comes to man\nand imprints Himself upon him. It is quite true that there is an\nimitation of Christ which amounts to reflection. But Paul's term includes\nall that the other holds, and is open to no mistake. \"Whom having not\nseen, I love.\" The Changed Life, p. 39.\n\nSeptember 3d. In paraphrase: We all reflecting as a mirror the character\nof Christ are transformed into the same Image from character to\ncharacter--from a poor character to a better one, from a better one to\none a little better still, from that to one still more complete, until by\nslow degrees the Perfect Image is attained. Here the solution of the\nproblem of sanctification is compressed into a sentence: Reflect the\ncharacter of Christ and you will become like Christ. The Changed Life, p.\n24.\n\nSeptember 4th. Not more certain is it that it is something outside the\nthermometer that produces a change in the thermometer, than it is\nsomething outside the soul of man that produces a moral change upon him.\nThat he must be susceptible to that change, that he must be a party to\nit, goes without saying; but that neither his aptitude nor his will can\nproduce it is equally certain. The Changed Life, p. 20.\n\nSeptember 5th. Just as in an organism we have these three things--\nformative matter, formed matter, and the forming principle or life; so in\nthe soul we have the old nature, the renewed nature, and. the\ntransforming Life. Natural Law, p. 302.\n\nSeptember 6th. Is it hopeless to point out that one of the most\nrecognizable characteristics of life is its unrecognizableness, and that\nthe very token of its spiritual nature lies in its being beyond the\ngrossness of our eyes? Natural Law, p. 302.\n\nSeptember 7th. According to the doctrine of Bio-genesis, life can only\ncome from life. It was Christ's additional claim that His function in the\nworld, was to give men Life. \"I am come that ye might have Life, and that\nye might have it more abundantly.\" This could, not refer to the natural\nlife, for men had that already. He that hath the Son hath another Life.\n\"Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you.\" Natural\nLaw, p. 303.\n\nSeptember 8th. The recognition of the Ideal is the first step in the\ndirection of Conformity. But let it be clearly observed that it is but a\nstep. There is no vital connection between merely seeing the Ideal and\nbeing conformed to it. Thousands admire Christ who never become\nChristians. Natural Law, p. 306.\n\nSeptember 9th. For centuries men have striven to find out ways and means\nto conform themselves to the Christ Life. Impressive motives have been\npictured, the proper circumstances arranged, the direction of effort\ndefined, and men have toiled, struggled, and agonized to conform\nthemselves to the Image of the Son. Can the protoplasm CONFORM ITSELF to\nits type? Can the embryo FASHION ITSELF? Is Conformity to Type produced\nby the matter OR BY THE LIFE, by the protoplasm or by the Type? Is\norganization the cause of life or the effect of it? It is the effect of\nit. Conformity to Type, therefore, is secured by the type. Christ makes\nthe Christian. Natural Law, p. 307.\n\nSeptember 10th. O preposterous and vain man, thou who couldest not make a\nfingernail of thy body, thinkest thou to fashion this wonderful,\nmysterious, subtle soul of thine after the ineffable Image? Wilt thou\never permit thyself TO BE conformed to the Image of the Son? Wilt thou,\nwho canst not add a cubit to thy stature, submit TO BE raised by the\nType-Life within thee to the perfect stature of Christ Natural Law, p.\n308.\n\nSeptember 11th. Men will still experiment \"by works of righteousness\nwhich they have done\" to earn the Ideal life. The doctrine of Human\nInability, as the Church calls it, has always been objectionable to men\nwho do not know themselves. Natural Law, p. 309.\n\nSeptember 12th. Let man choose Life; let him daily nourish his soul; let\nhim forever starve the old life; let him abide continuously as a living\nbranch in the Vine, and the True-Vine Life will flow into his soul,\nassimilating, renewing, conforming to Type, till Christ, pledged by His\nown law, be formed in him. Natural Law, p. 312.\n\nSeptember 13th. The work begun by Nature is finished by the Supernatural\n--as we are wont to call the higher natural. And as the veil is lifted by\nChristianity it strikes men dumb with wonder. For the goal of Evolution\nis Jesus Christ. Natural Law, p. 314.\n\nSeptember 14th. The Christian life is the only life that will ever be\ncompleted. Apart from Christ the life of man is a broken pillar, the race\nof men an unfinished pyramid. One by one in sight of Eternity all human\nIdeals fall short, one by one before the open grave all human hopes\ndissolve. Natural Law, p. 314.\n\nSeptember 15th. I do not think we ourselves are aware how much our\nreligious life is made up of phrases; how much of what we call Christian\nexperience is only a dialect of the Churches, a mere religious\nphraseology with almost nothing behind it in what we really feel and\nknow. Pax Vobiscum, p. 12.\n\nSeptember 16th. The ceaseless chagrin of a self-centred life can be\nremoved at once by learning Meekness and Lowliness of heart. He who\nlearns them is forever proof against it. He lives henceforth a charmed\nlife. Pax Vobiscum, p. 29.\n\nSeptember 17th. Great trials come at lengthened intervals, and we rise to\nbreast them; but it is the petty friction of our everyday life with one\nanother, the jar of business or of work, the discord of the domestic\ncircle, the collapse of our ambition, the crossing of our will or the\ntaking down of our conceit, which makes inward peace impossible. Pax\nVobiscum, p. 28.\n\nSeptember 18th. There are people who go about the world looking out for\nslights, and they are necessarily miserable, for they find them at every\nturn--especially the imaginary ones. One has the same pity for such men\nas for the very poor. They are the morally illiterate. They have had no\nreal education, for they have never learned how to live. Pax Vobiscum, p.\n31.\n\nSeptember 19th. Christ never said much in mere words about the Christian\ngraces. He lived them, He was them. Yet we do not merely copy Him. We\nlearn His art by living with Him. Pax Vobiscum, p. 32.\n\nSeptember 20th. Christ's invitation to the weary and heavy-laden is a\ncall to begin life over again upon a new principle--upon His own\nprinciple. \"Watch My way of doing things,\" He says. \"Follow Me. Take life\nas I take it. Be meek and lowly, and you will find Rest.\" Pax Vobiscum,\np. 32.\n\nSeptember 21st. If a man could make himself humble to order, it might\nsimplify matters, but we do not find that this happens. Hence we must all\ngo through the mill. Hence death, death to the lower self, is the nearest\ngate and the quickest road to life. Pax Vobiscum, p. 35.\n\nSeptember 22d. Whatever rest is provided by Christianity for the children\nof God, it is certainly never contemplated that it should supersede\npersonal effort. And any rest which ministers to indifference is immoral\nand unreal--it makes parasites and not men. Natural Law, p. 335.\n\nSeptember 23d. Just because God worketh in him, as the evidence and\ntriumph of it, the true child of God works out his own salvation--works\nit out having really received it--not as a light thing, a superfluous\nlabour, but with fear and trembling as a reasonable and indispensable\nservice. Natural Law, p. 335.\n\nSeptember 24th. Christianity, as Christ taught, is the truest philosophy\nof life ever spoken. But let us be quite sure when we speak of\nChristianity, that we mean Christ's Christianity. Pax Vobiscum, p. 47.\n\nSeptember 25th. So far from ministering to growth, parasitism ministers\nto decay. So far from ministering to holiness, that is to wholeness,\nparasitism ministers to exactly the opposite. One by one the spiritual\nfaculties droop and die, one by one from lack of exercise the muscles of\nthe soul grow weak and flaccid, one by one the moral activities cease. So\nfrom him that hath not, is taken away that which he hath, and after a few\nyears of parasitism there is nothing left to save. Natural Law, p. 336.\n\nSeptember 26th. The natural life, not less than the eternal, is the gift\nof God. But life in either case is the beginning of growth and not the\nend of grace. To pause where we should begin, to retrograde where we\nshould advance, to seek a mechanical security that we may cover inertia\nand find a wholesale salvation in which there is no personal\nsanctification--this is Parasitism. Natural Law, p. 336.\n\nSeptember 27th. Could we investigate the spirit as a living organism, or\nstudy the soul of the backslider on principles of comparative anatomy, we\nshould have a revelation of the organic effects of sin, even of the mere\nsin of carelessness as to growth and work, which must revolutionize our\nideas of practical religion. There is no room for the doubt even that\nwhat goes on in the body does not with equal certainty take place in the\nspirit under the corresponding conditions. Natural Law, p. 345.\n\nSeptember 28th. It is the beautiful work of Christianity everywhere to\nadjust the burden of life to those who bear it, and them to it. It has a\nperfectly miraculous gift of healing. Without doing any violence to human\nnature it sets it right with life, harmonizing it with all surrounding\nthings, and restoring those who are jaded with the fatigue and dust of\nthe world to a new grace of living. Pax Vobiscum, p. 46.\n\nSeptember 29th. The penalty of backsliding is not something unreal and\nvague, some unknown quantity which may be measured out to us\ndisproportionately, or which, perchance, since God is good, we may\naltogether evade. The consequences are already marked within the\nstructure of the soul. So to speak, they are physiological. The thing\neffected by our in difference or by our indulgence is not the book of\nfinal judgment, but the present fabric of the soul. Natural Law, p. 346.\n\nSeptember 30th. The punishment of degeneration is simply degeneration--\nthe loss of functions, the decay of organs, the atrophy of the spiritual\nnature. It is well known that the recovery of the backslider is one of\nthe hardest problems in spiritual work. To reinvigorate an old organ\nseems more difficult and hopeless than to develop a new one; and the\nbackslider's terrible lot is to have to retrace with enfeebled feet each\nstep of the way along which he strayed; to make up inch by inch the\nleeway he has lost, carrying with him a dead-weight of acquired\nreluctance, and scarce knowing whether to be stimulated or discouraged by\nthe oppressive memory of the previous fall. Natural Law, p. 346.\n\nOctober 1st. He who abandons the personal search for truth, under\nwhatever pretext, abandons truth. The very word truth, by becoming the\nlimited possession of a guild, ceases to have any meaning; and faith,\nwhich can only be founded on truth, gives way to credulity, resting on\nmere opinion. Natural Law, p. 352.\n\nOctober 2d. It is more necessary for us to be active than to be orthodox.\nTo be orthodox is what we wish to be, but we can only truly reach it by\nbeing honest, by being original, by seeing with our own eyes, by\nbelieving with our own heart. Natural Law. p. 364.\n\nOctober 3d. Better a little faith dearly won, better launched alone on\nthe infinite bewilderment of Truth, than perish on the splendid plenty of\nthe richest creeds. Such Doubt is no self-willed presumption. Nor, truly\nexercised, will it prove itself, as much doubt does, the synonym for\nsorrow. Natural Law, p. 365.\n\nOctober 4th. Christianity removes the attraction of the earth; and this\nis one way in which it diminishes men's burden. It makes them citizens of\nanother world. Pax Vobiscum, p. 47.\n\nOctober 5th. Then the Christian experiences are our own making? In the\nsame sense in which grapes are our own making, and no more. All fruits\nGROW--whether they grow in the soil or in the soul; whether they are the\nfruits of the wild grape or of the True Vine. No man can MAKE things\ngrow. He can GET THEM TO GROW by arranging all the circumstances and\nfulfilling all the conditions. But the growing is done by God. Pax\nVobiscum, p. 56.\n\nOctober 6th. Men may not know how fruits grow, but they do know that they\ncannot grow in five minutes. Some lives have not even a stalk on which\nfruits could hang, even if they did grow in five minutes. Some have never\nplanted one sound seed of Joy in all their lives; and others who may have\nplanted a germ or two have lived so little in sunshine that they never\ncould come to maturity. Pax Vobiscum, p. 51.\n\nOctober 7th. There is no mystery about Happiness whatever. Put in the\nright ingredients and it must come out. He that abideth in Him will bring\nforth much fruit; and bringing forth much fruit is Happiness. The\ninfallible receipt for Happiness, then, is to do good; and the infallible\nreceipt for doing good is to abide in Christ. Pax Vobiscum, p. 56.\n\nOctober 8th. Spend the time you have spent in sighing for fruits in\nfulfilling the conditions of their growth. The fruits will come, must\ncome. . . . About every other method of living the Christian life there\nis an uncertainty. About every other method of acquiring the Christian\nexperiences there is a \"perhaps.\" But in so far as this method is the way\nof nature, it cannot fail. Pax Vobiscum, p. 58.\n\nOctober 9th. The distinctions drawn between men are commonly based on the\noutward appearance of goodness or badness, on the ground of moral beauty\nor moral deformity--is this classification scientific? Or is there a\ndeeper distinction between the Christian and the not-a-Christian as\nfundamental as that between the organic and the inorganic? Natural Law,\np. 374.\n\nOctober 10th What is the essential difference between the Christian and\nthe not-a-Christian, between the spiritual beauty and the moral beauty?\nIt is the distinction between the Organic and the Inorganic. Moral beauty\nis the product of the natural man, spiritual beauty of the spiritual man.\nNatural Law, p. 380.\n\nOctober 11th. The first Law of biology is: That which is Mineral is\nMineral; that which is Flesh is Flesh; that which is Spirit is Spirit.\nThe mineral remains in the inorganic world until it is seized upon by a\nsomething called Life outside the inorganic world; the natural man\nremains the natural man, until a Spiritual Life from without the natural\nlife seizes upon him, regenerates him, changes him into a spiritual man.\nNatural Law, p. 381.\n\nOctober 12th Suppose now it be granted for a moment that the character of\nthe not-a-Christian is as beautiful as that of the Christian. This is\nsimply to say that the crystal is as beautiful as the organism. One is\nquite entitled to hold this; but what he is not entitled to hold is that\nboth in the same sense are living. \"He that hath the Son hath Life, and\nhe that hath not the Son of God hath not Life.\" Natural Law, p. 382.\n\nOctober 13th. Man is a moral animal, and can, and ought to, arrive at\ngreat natural beauty of character. But this is simply to obey the law of\nhis nature--the law of his flesh; and no progress along that line can\nproject him into the spiritual sphere. Natural Law, p. 382.\n\nOctober 14th. If any one choose to claim that the mineral beauty, the\nfleshly beauty, the natural moral beauty, is all he covets, he is\nentitled to his claim. To be good and true, pure and benevolent in the\nmoral sphere, are high and, so far, legitimate objects in life. If he\ndeliberately stop here, he is at liberty to do so. But what he is not\nentitled to do is to call himself a Christian, or to claim to discharge\nthe functions peculiar to the Christian life. Natural Law, p. 382.\n\nOctober 15th. In dealing with a man of fine moral character, we are\ndealing with the highest achievement of the organic kingdom. But in\ndealing with a spiritual man we are dealing with THE LOWEST FORM OF LIFE\nIN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. To contrast the two, therefore, and marvel that\nthe one is apparently so little better than the other, is unscientific\nand unjust. Natural Law, p. 385.\n\nOctober 16th. The spiritual man is a mere unformed embryo, hidden as yet\nin his earthly chrysalis-case, while the natural man has the breeding and\nevolution of ages represented in his character. But what are the\npossibilities of this spiritual organism? What is yet to emerge from this\nchrysalis-case? The natural character finds its limits within the organic\nsphere. But who is to define the limits of the spiritual? Even now it is\nvery beautiful. Even as an embryo it contains some prophecy of its future\nglory. But the point to mark is, that \"it doth not yet appear what it\nshall be.\" Natural Law, p. 386.\n\nOctober 17th. The best test for Life is just LIVING. And living consists,\nas we have formerly seen, in corresponding with Environment. Those\ntherefore who find within themselves, and regularly exercise, the\nfaculties for corresponding with the Divine Environment, may be said to\nlive the Spiritual Life. Natural Law, p. 390.\n\nOctober 18th. That the Spiritual Life, even in the embryonic organism,\nought already to betray itself to others, is certainly what one would\nexpect. Every organism has its own reaction upon Nature, and the reaction\nof the spiritual organism upon the community must be looked for. In the\nabsence of any such reaction, in the absence of any token that it lived\nfor a higher purpose, or that its real interests were those of the\nKingdom to which it professed to belong, we should be entitled to\nquestion its being in that Kingdom. Natural Law, p. 390.\n\nOctober 19th. Man's place in Nature, or his position among the Kingdoms,\nis to be decided by the characteristic functions habitually discharged by\nhim. Now, when the habits of certain individuals are closely observed,\nwhen the total effect of their life and work, with regard to the\ncommunity, is gauged, . . . there ought to be no difficulty in deciding\nwhether they are living for the Organic or for the Spiritual; in plainer\nlanguage, for the world or for God. Natural Law, p. 391.\n\nOctober 20th. No matter what may be the moral uprightness of man's life,\nthe honourableness of his career, or the orthodoxy of his creed, if he\nexercises the function of loving the world, that defines his world--he\nbelongs to the Organic Kingdom. He cannot in that case belong to the\nhigher Kingdom. \"If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not\nin him.\" After all, it is by the general bent of a man's life, by his\nheart-impulses and secret desires, his spontaneous actions and abiding\nmotives, that his generation is declared. Natural Law, p. 393.\n\nOctober 21st. The imperious claim of a Kingdom upon its members is not\npeculiar to Christianity. It is the law in all departments of Nature that\nevery organism must live for its Kingdom. And in defining living FOR the\nhigher Kingdom as the condition of living in it, Christ enunciates a\nprinciple which all Nature has prepared us to expect. Natural Law, p.\n395.\n\nOctober 22d. Christianity marks the advent of what is simply a new\nKingdom. Its distinctions from the Kingdom below it are fundamental. It\ndemands from its members activities and responses of an altogether novel\norder. It is, in the conception of its Founder, a Kingdom for which all\nits adherents must henceforth exclusively live and work, and which opens\nits gates alone upon those who, having counted the cost, are prepared to\nfollow it if need be to the death. The surrender Christ demanded was\nabsolute. Every aspirant for membership must seek FIRST the Kingdom of\nGod. Natural Law, p. 394.\n\nOctober 23d. Until even religious men see the uniqueness of Christ's\nsociety, until they acknowledge to the full extent its claim to be\nnothing less than a new Kingdom, they will continue the hopeless attempt\nto live for two Kingdoms at once. And hence the value of a more explicit\nClassification. For probably the most of the difficulties of trying to\nlive the Christian life arise from attempting to half-live it. Natural\nLaw, p. 396.\n\nOctober 24th. Two Kingdoms, at the present time, are known to Science--\nthe Inorganic and the Organic. The spiritual life does not belong to the\nInorganic Kingdom, because it lives. It does not belong to the Organic\nKingdom, because it is endowed with a kind of Life infinitely removed\nfrom either the vegetable or animal. Where, then, shall it be classed? We\nare left without an alternative. There being no Kingdom known to Science\nwhich can contain it, we must construct one. Or, rather, we must include\nin the programme of Science a Kingdom already constructed, but the place\nof which in Science has not yet been recognized. That Kingdom is the\nKINGDOM OF GOD. Natural Law, p. 397.\n\nOctober 25th. The goal of the organisms of the Spiritual World is nothing\nless than this--to be \"holy as He is holy, and pure as He is pure.\" And\nby the Law of Conformity to Type, their final perfection is secured. The\ninward nature must develop out according to its Type, until the\nconsummation of oneness with God is reached. Natural Law, p. 403.\n\nOctober 26th. Christianity defines the highest conceivable future for\nmankind. It satisfies the Law of Continuity. It guarantees the necessary\nconditions for carrying on the organism successfully, from stage to\nstage. It provides against the tendency to Degeneration. And finally,\ninstead of limiting the yearning hope of final perfection to the\norganisms of a future age--an age so remote that the hope for thousands\nof years must still be hopeless--instead of inflicting this cruelty on\nintelligences mature enough to know perfection and earnest enough to wish\nit, Christianity puts the prize within immediate reach of man. Natural\nLaw, p. 404.\n\nOctober 27th. No worse fate can befall a man in this world than to live\nand grow old alone, unloving and unloved. To be lost is to live in an\nunregenerate condition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved is to love;\nhe that dwelleth in love dwelleth already in God. For God is Love. The\nGreatest Thing in the World, p. 59.\n\nOctober 28th. \"Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love\nvaunteth not itself.\" Get these ingredients into your life. Then\neverything that you do is eternal. It is worth doing. It is worth giving\ntime to. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 60.\n\nOctober 29th. The final test of religion at that great Day is not\nreligiousness, but Love; not what I have done, not what I have believed,\nnot what I have achieved, but how I have discharged the common charities\nof life. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 62.\n\nOctober 30th. The words which all of us shall one Day hear sound not of\ntheology but of life, not of churches and saints, but of the hungry and\nthe poor, not of creeds and doctrines, but of shelter and clothing, not\nof Bibles and prayer-books, but of cups of cold water in the name of\nChrist. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 63.\n\nOctober 31st. The world moves. And each day, each hour, demands a further\nmotion and re-adjustment for the soul. A telescope in an observatory\nfollows a star by clockwork, but the clockwork of the soul is called the\nWill. Hence, while the soul in passivity reflects the Image of the Lord,\nthe Will in intense activity holds the mirror in position lest the\ndrifting motion of the world bear it beyond the line of vision. To\n\"follow Christ\" is largely to keep the soul in such position as will\nallow for the motion of the earth. And this calculated counteracting of\nthe movements of a world, this holding of the mirror exactly opposite to\nthe Mirrored, this steadying of the faculties unerringly, through cloud\nand earthquake; fire and sword, is the stupendous cooperating labour of\nthe Will. The Changed Life, p. 60.\n\nNovember 1st. All around us Christians are wearing themselves out in\ntrying to be better. The amount of spiritual longing in the world--in the\nhearts of unnumbered thousands of men and women in whom we should never\nsuspect it; among the wise and thoughtful; among the young and gay, who\nseldom assuage and never betray their thirst--this is one of the most\nwonderful and touching facts of life. It is not more heat that is needed,\nbut more light; not more force, but a wiser direction to be given to very\nreal energies already there. Pax Vobiscum, p. 14.\n\nNovember 2d. Men sigh for the wings of a dove, that they may fly away and\nbe at Rest. But flying away will not help us. \"The Kingdom of God is\nWITHIN YOU.\" We aspire to the top to look for Rest; it lies at the\nbottom. Water rests only when it gets to the lowest place. So do men.\nHence, be lowly. Pax Vobiscum, p. 30.\n\nNovember 3d. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy.\nRighteousness, of course, is just doing what is right. Any boy who does\nwhat is right has the kingdom of God within him. Any boy who, instead of\nbeing quarrelsome, lives at peace with the other boys, has the kingdom of\nGod within him. Any boy whose heart is filled with joy because he does\nwhat is right, has the kingdom of God within him. The kingdom of God is\nnot going to religious meetings, and hearing strange religious\nexperiences: the kingdom of God is doing what is right--living at peace\nwith all men, being filled with joy in the Holy Ghost. First, p. 11.\n\nNovember 4th. The man who has no opinion of himself at all can never be\nhurt if others do not acknowledge him. Hence, be meek. He who is without\nexpectation cannot fret if nothing comes to him. It is self-evident that\nthese things are so. The lowly man and the meek man are really above all\nother men, above all other things. Pax Vobiscum, p. 30.\n\nNovember 5th. Keep religion in its place, and it will take you straight\nthrough life, and straight to your Father in heaven when life is over.\nBut if you do not put it in its place, you may just as well have nothing\nto do with it. Religion out of its place in a human life is the most\nmiserable thing in the world. There is nothing that requires so much to\nbe kept in its place as religion, and its place is what? second? third?\n\"First.\" Boys, carry that home with you today--FIRST the kingdom of God.\nMake it so that it will be natural to you to think about that the very\nfirst thing. First, pp. 15, 16.\n\nNovember 6th. The change we have been striving after is not to be\nproduced by any more striving after. It is to be wrought upon us by the\nmoulding of hands beyond our own. As the branch ascends, and the bud\nbursts, and the fruit reddens under the cooperation of influences from\nthe outside air, so man rises to the higher stature under invisible\npressures from without. The Changed Life, p. 21.\n\nNovember 7th. Every man's character remains as it is, or continues in the\ndirection in which it is going, until it is compelled by IMPRESSED FORCES\nto change that state. Our failure has been the failure to put ourselves\nin the way of the impressed forces. There is a clay, and there is a\nPotter; we have tried to get the clay to mould the clay. The Changed\nLife, p. 21.\n\nNovember 8th. Character is a unity, and all the virtues must advance\ntogether to make the perfect man. This method of sanctification,\nnevertheless, is in the true direction. It is only in the details of\nexecution that it fails. The Changed Life, p. 14.\n\nNovember 9th. We all reflecting as a mirror the character of Christ are\ntransformed into the same Image from character to character--from a poor\ncharacter to a better one, from a better one to one a little better\nstill, from that to one still more complete, until by slow degrees the\nPerfect Image is attained. Here the solution of the problem of\nsanctification is compressed into a sentence: Reflect the character of\nChrist, and you will become like Christ. The Changed Life, p. 24.\n\nNovember 10th. There are some men and some women in whose company we are\nalways at our best. While with them we cannot think mean thoughts or\nspeak ungenerous words. Their mere presence is elevation, purification,\nsanctity. All the best stops in our nature are drawn out by their\nintercourse, and we find a music in our souls that was never there\nbefore. The Changed Life, p. 33.\n\nNovember 11th. Take such a sentence as this: African explorers are\nsubject to fevers which cause restlessness and delirium. Note the\nexpression, \"cause restlessness.\" RESTLESSNESS HAS A CAUSE. Clearly,\nthen, any one who wished to get rid of restlessness would proceed at once\nto deal with the cause. Pax Vobiscum, p. 20.\n\nNovember 12th. What Christian experience wants is THREAD, a vertebral\ncolumn, method. It is impossible to believe that there is no remedy for\nits unevenness and dishevelment, or that the remedy is a secret. The\nidea, also, that some few men, by happy chance or happier temperament,\nhave been given the secret--as if there were some sort of knack or trick\nof it--is wholly incredible. Religion must ripen fruit for every\ntemperament; and the way even into its highest heights must be by a\ngateway through which the peoples of the world may pass. Pax Vobiscum, p.\n15.\n\nNovember 13th. Nothing that happens in the world happens by chance. God\nis a God of order. Everything is arranged upon definite principles, and\nnever at random. The world, even the religious world, is governed by law.\nCharacter is governed by law. Happiness is governed by law. The Christian\nexperiences are governed by law. Pax Vobiscum, p. 17.\n\nNovember 14th. We ARE CHANGED, as the Old Version has it--we do not\nchange ourselves. No man can change himself. Throughout the New Testament\nyou will find that wherever these moral and spiritual transformations are\ndescribed the verbs are in the passive. Presently it will be pointed out\nthat there is a rationale in this; but meantime do not toss these words\naside as if this passivity denied all human effort or ignored\nintelligible law. What is implied for the soul here is no more than is\neverywhere claimed for the body. The Changed Life, p. 19.\n\nNovember 15th. Rain and snow do drop from the air, but not without a long\nprevious history. They are the mature effects of former causes. Equally\nso are Rest, and Peace, and Joy. They, too, have each a previous history.\nStorms and winds and calms are not accidents, but are brought about by\nantecedent circumstances. Rest and Peace are but calms in man's inward\nnature, and arise through causes as definite and as inevitable. Pax\nVobiscum, p. 18.\n\nNovember 16th. Few men know how to live. We grow up at random, carrying\ninto mature life the merely animal methods and motives which we had as\nlittle children. And it does not occur to us that all this must be\nchanged; that much of it must be reversed; that life is the finest of the\nFine Arts; that it has to be learned with life-long patience, and that\nthe years of our pilgrimage are all too short to master it triumphantly.\nPax Vobiscum, p. 31.\n\nNovember 17th. Christ's life outwardly was one of the most troubled lives\nthat was ever lived: Tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, the waves\nbreaking over it all the time till the worn body was laid in the grave.\nBut the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm was always there.\nAt any moment you might have gone to Him and found Rest. Pax Vobiscum, p.\n35.\n\nNovember 18th. The creation of a new heart, the renewing of a right\nspirit is an omnipotent work of God. Leave it to the Creator. \"He which\nhath begun a good work in you will perfect it unto that day.\" The Changed\nLife, p. 57.\n\nNovember 19th. To become like Christ is the only thing in the world worth\ncaring for, the thing before which every ambition of man is folly, and\nall lower achievement vain. Those only who make this quest the supreme\ndesire and passion of their lives can even begin to hope to reach it. The\nChanged Life, p. 57.\n\nNovember 20th. A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion for\nan angel but never for a man. Not in the contemplative, but in the\nactive, lies true hope; not in rapture, but in reality, lies true life;\nnot in the realm of ideals, but among tangible things, is man's\nsanctification wrought. The Changed Life, p. 58.\n\nNovember 21st. Nothing ever for a moment broke the serenity of Christ's\nlife on earth. Misfortune could not reach Him; He had no fortune. Food,\nraiment, money--fountain-heads of half the world's weariness--He simply\ndid not care for; they played no part in His life; He \"took no thought\"\nfor them. It was impossible to affect Him by lowering His reputation; He\nhad already made Himself of no reputation. He was dumb before insult.\nWhen He was reviled, He reviled not again. In fact, there was nothing\nthat the world could do to Him that could ruffle the surface of His\nspirit. Pax Vobiscum, p. 36.\n\nNovember 22d. Life is the cradle of eternity. As the man is to the animal\nin the slowness of his evolution, so is the spiritual man to the natural\nman. Foundations which have to bear the weight of an eternal life must be\nsurely laid. Character is to wear forever; who will wonder or grudge that\nit cannot be developed in a day? The Changed Life, p. 55.\n\nNovember 23d. To await the growing of a soul is an almost Divine act of\nfaith. How pardonable, surely, the impatience of deformity with itself,\nof a consciously despicable character standing before Christ, wondering,\nyearning, hungering to be like that? Yet must one trust the process\nfearlessly, and without misgiving. \"The Lord the Spirit\" will do His\npart. The tempting expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visible progress,\nto try some method less spiritual, or to defeat the end by watching for\neffects instead of keeping the eye on the Cause. The Changed Life, p. 56.\n\nNovember 24th. The Image of Christ that is forming within us--that is\nlife's one charge. Let every project stand aside for that. \"Till Christ\nbe formed,\" no man's work is finished, no religion crowned, no life has\nfulfilled its end. Is the infinite task begun? When, how, are we to be\ndifferent? Time cannot change men. Death cannot change men. Christ can.\nWherefore PUT ON CHRIST. The Changed Life, p. 62.\n\nNovember 25th. Christ saw that men took life painfully. To some it was a\nweariness, to others a failure, to many a tragedy, to all a struggle and\na pain. How to carry this burden of life had been the whole world's\nproblem. It is still the whole world's problem. And here is Christ's\nsolution. \"Carry it as I do. Take life as I take it. Look at it from My\npoint of view. Interpret it upon My principles. Take My yoke and learn of\nMe, and you will find it easy. For My yoke is easy, works easily, sits\nright upon the shoulders, and THEREFORE My burden is light.\" Pax\nVobiscum, p. 44.\n\nNovember 26th. There is a disease called \"touchiness\"--a disease which,\nin spite of its innocent name, is one of the gravest sources of\nrestlessness in the world. Touchiness, when it becomes chronic, is a\nmorbid condition of the inward disposition. It is self-love inflamed to\nthe acute point. . . The cure is to shift the yoke to some other place;\nto let men and things touch us through some new and perhaps as yet unused\npart of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart while the old\nnature is becoming numb from want of use. Pax Vobiscum, pp. 45, 46.\n\nNovember 27th. Christ's yoke is simply His secret for the alleviation of\nhuman life, His prescription for the best and happiest method of living.\nMen harness themselves to the work and stress of the world in clumsy\nand unnatural ways. The harness they put on is antiquated. A rough,\nill-fitted collar at the best, they make its strain and friction past\nenduring, by placing it where the neck is most sensitive; and by mere\ncontinuous irritation this sensitiveness increases until the whole nature\nis quick and sore. Pax Vobiscum, p. 45.\n\nNovember 28th. No one can get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of\nthe ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like all fruits, must be\ngrown. Pax Vobiscum, p. 50.\n\nNovember 29th Christ is the source of Joy to men in the sense in which He\nis the source of Rest. His people share His life, and therefore share its\nconsequences, and one of these is Joy. His method of living is one that\nin the nature of things produces Joy. When He spoke of His Joy remaining\nwith us He meant in part that the causes which produced it should\ncontinue to act. His followers, that is to say, by repeating His life\nwould experience its accompaniments. His Joy, His kind of Joy, would\nremain with them. Pax Vobiscum, p. 54.\n\nNovember 30th. Think of it, the past is not only focussed there, in a\nman's soul, it IS there. How could it be reflected from there if it were\nnot there? All things that he has ever seen, known, felt, believed of the\nsurrounding world are now within him, have become part of him, in part\nare him--he has been changed into their image. He may deny it, he may\nresent it, but they are there. They do not adhere to him, they are\ntransfused through him. He cannot alter or rub them out. They are not in\nhis memory, they are in HIM. His soul is as they have filled it, made it,\nleft it. The Changed Life, p. 27.\n\nDecember 1st. Temper is significant, not in what it is alone but in what\nit reveals. . . . It is a test for love, a symptom, a revelation of an\nunloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent fever which bespeaks\nunintermittent disease within; the occasional bubble escaping to the\nsurface which betrays some rottenness underneath; a sample of the most\nhidden products of the soul dropped involuntarily when off one's guard;\nIN A WORD, the lightning form of a hundred hideous and un-Christian sins.\nThe Greatest Thing in the World, p. 34.\n\nDecember 2d. You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the\nmoments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the\nmoments when you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scans\nthe past, above and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life there\nleap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to do\nunnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too trifling to\nspeak about, but which you feel have entered into your eternal life. The\nGreatest Thing in the World, p. 60.\n\nDecember 3d. If events change men, much more persons. No man can meet\nanother on the street without making some mark upon him. We say we\nexchange words when we meet; what we exchange is souls. And when\nintercourse is very close and very frequent, so complete is this exchange\nthat recognizable bits of the one soul begin to show in the other's\nnature, and the second is conscious of a similar and growing debt to the\nfirst. The Changed Life, p. 30.\n\nDecember 4th. In the natural world we absorb heat, breathe air, draw on\nEnvironment all but automatically for meat and drink, for the nourishment\nof the senses, for mental stimulus, for all that, penetrating us from\nwithout, can prolong, enrich, and elevate life. But in the spiritual\nworld we have all this to learn. We are new creatures, and even the bare\nliving has to be acquired. Natural Law, p. 267.\n\nDecember 5th. The great point in learning to live the spiritual life is\nto live naturally. As closely as possible we must follow the broad, clear\nlines of the natural life. And there are three things especially which it\nis necessary for us to keep continually in view. The first is that the\norganism contains within itself only one-half of what is essential to\nlife; the second is that the other half is contained in the Environment;\nthe third, that the condition of receptivity is simple union between the\norganism and the Environment. Natural Law, p. 268.\n\nDecember 6th. To say that the organism contains within itself only\none-half of what is essential to life, is to repeat the evangelical\nconfession, so worn and yet so true to universal experience, of the utter\nhelplessness of man. Natural Law, p. 268.\n\nDecember 7th. Who has not come to the conclusion that he is but a part, a\nfraction of some larger whole? Who does not miss at every turn of his\nlife an absent God? That man is but a part, he knows, for there is room\nin him for more. That God is the other part, he feels, because at times\nHe satisfies his need. Who does not tremble often under that sicklier\nsymptom of his incompleteness, his want of spiritual energy, his\nhelplessness with sin? But now he understands both--the void in his life,\nthe powerlessness of his will. He understands that, like all other\nenergy, spiritual power is contained in Environment. He finds here at\nlast the true root of all human frailty, emptiness, nothingness, sin.\nThis is why \"without Me ye can do nothing.\" Powerless is the normal state\nnot only of this but of every organism--of every organism apart from its\nEnvironment. Natural Law, p. 268.\n\nDecember 8th. To seize continuously the opportunity of more and more\nperfect adjustment to better and higher conditions, to balance some\ninward evil with some purer influence acting from without, in a word to\nmake our Environment at the same time that it is making us--these are the\nsecrets of a well-ordered and successful life. Natural Law, p. 256.\n\nDecember 9th. In the spiritual world the subtle influences which form and\ntransform the soul are Heredity and Environment. And here especially,\nwhere all is invisible, where much that we feel to be real is yet so\nill-defined, it becomes of vital practical moment to clarify the\natmosphere as far as possible with conceptions borrowed from the natural\nlife. Natural Law, p. 256.\n\nDecember 10th. These lower correspondences are in their nature unfitted\nfor an Eternal Life. Even if they were perfect in their relation to their\nEnvironment, they would still not be Eternal. However opposed,\napparently, to the scientific definition of Eternal Life, it is yet true\nthat perfect correspondence with Environment is not Eternal Life. . . .\nAn Eternal Life demands an Eternal Environment. Natural Law, p. 245.\n\nDecember 11th. On what does the Christian argument for Immortality really\nrest? It stands upon the pedestal on which the theologian rests the whole\nof historical Christianity--the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Natural\nLaw, p. 234.\n\nDecember 12th. The soul which has no correspondence with the spiritual\nenvironment is spiritually dead. It may be that it never possessed . . .\nthe spiritual ear, or a heart which throbbed in response to the love of\nGod. If so, having never lived, it cannot be said to have died. But not\nto have these correspondences is to be in the state of Death. To the\nspiritual world, to the Divine Environment, it is dead--as a stone which\nhas never lived is dead to the environment of the organic world. Natural\nLaw, p. 177.\n\nDecember 13th. The humanity of what is called \"sudden conversion\" has\nnever been insisted on as it deserves. . . . While growth is a slow and\ngradual process, the change from Death to Life, alike in the natural and\nspiritual spheres, is the work of the moment. Whatever the conscious hour\nof the second birth may be--in the case of an adult it is probably\ndefined by the first real victory over sin--it is certain that on\nbiological principles the real turning-point is literally a moment.\nNatural Law, p. 184.\n\nDecember 14th. Christ says we must hate life. Now, this does not apply to\nall life. It is \"life in this world\" that is to be hated. For life in\nthis world implies conformity to this world. It may not mean pursuing\nworldly pleasures, or mixing with worldly sets; but a subtler thing than\nthat--a silent deference to worldly opinion; an almost unconscious\nlowering of religious tone to the level of the worldly-religious world\naround; a subdued resistance to the soul's delicate promptings to greater\nconsecration, out of deference to \"breadth\" or fear of ridicule. These,\nand such things, are what Christ tells us we must hate. For these things\nare of the very essence of worldliness. \"If any man love the world,\" even\nin this sense, \"the love of the Father is not in him.\" Natural Law, p.\n197.\n\nDecember 15th. To correspond with the God of Science, the Eternal\nUnknowable, would be everlasting existence; to correspond with \"the true\nGod and Jesus Christ,\" is Eternal Life. The quality of the Eternal Life\nalone makes the heaven; mere everlastingness might be no boon. Even the\nbrief span of the temporal life is too long for those who spend its years\nin sorrow. Natural Law, p. 220.\n\nDecember 16th. The relation between the spiritual man and his Environment\nis, in theological language, a filial relation. With the new Spirit, the\nfilial correspondence, he knows the Father--and this is Life Eternal.\nThis is not only the real relation, but the only possible relation:\n\"Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever\nthe Son will reveal Him.\" And this on purely natural grounds. Natural\nLaw, p. 229.\n\nDecember 17th. Communion with God--can it be demonstrated in terms of\nScience that this is a correspondence which will never break? We do not\nappeal to Science for such a testimony. We have asked for its conception\nof an Eternal Life; and we have received for answer that Eternal Life\nwould consist in a correspondence which should never cease, with an\nEnvironment which should never pass away. And yet what would Science\ndemand of a perfect correspondence that is not met by this, THE KNOWING\nOF GOD? There is no other correspondence which could satisfy one at least\nof the conditions. Not one could be named which would not bear on the\nface of it the mark and pledge of its mortality. But this, to know God,\nstands alone. Natural Law, p. 220.\n\nDecember 18th. The misgiving which will creep sometimes over the\nbrightest faith has already received its expression and its rebuke: \"Who\nshall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or\ndistress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?\"\nShall these \"changes in the physical state of the environment\" which\nthreaten death to the natural man, destroy the spiritual? Shall death, or\nlife, or angels, or principalities, or powers, arrest or tamper with his\neternal correspondences? \"Nay, in all these things we are more than\nconquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither\ndeath, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things\npresent, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other\ncreature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in\nChrist Jesus our Lord.\" Rom. viii, 35-39. Natural Law, p. 230.\n\nDecember 19th. \"We find that man, or the spiritual man, is equipped with\ntwo sets of correspondences.\" One set possesses the quality of\neverlastingness, the other is temporal. But unless these are separated by\nsome means the temporal will continue to impair and hinder the eternal.\nThe final preparation, therefore, for the inheriting of Eternal Life must\nconsist in the abandonment of the non-eternal elements. These must be\nunloosed and dissociated from the higher elements. And this is effected\nby a closing catastrophe--Death. Natural Law, p. 248.\n\nDecember 20th. Heredity and Environment are the master-influences of the\norganic world. These have made all of us what we are. These forces are\nstill ceaselessly playing upon all our lives. And he who truly\nunderstands these influences; he who has decided how much to allow to\neach; he who can regulate new forces as they arise, or adjust them to the\nold, so directing them as at one moment to make them cooperate, at\nanother to counter act one another, understands the rationale of personal\ndevelopment. Natural Law, p. 255.\n\nDecember 21st. It is the Law of Influence that WE BECOME LIKE THOSE WHOM\nWE HABITUALLY ADMIRE. Through all the range of literature, of history,\nand biography this law presides. Men are all mosaics of other men. There\nwas a savour of David about Jonathan and a savour of Jonathan about\nDavid. Jean Valjean, in the masterpiece of Victor Hugo, is Bishop\nBienvenu risen from the dead. Metempsychosis is a fact. The Changed Life,\np. 31.\n\nDecember 22d. Can we shut our eyes to the fact that the religious\nopinions of mankind are in a state of flux? And when we regard the\nuncertainty of current beliefs, the war of creeds, the havoc of\ninevitable as well as of idle doubt, the reluctant abandonment of early\nfaith by those who would cherish it longer if they could, is it not plain\nthat the one thing thinking men are waiting for is the introduction of\nLaw among the Phenomena of the Spiritual World? When that comes we shall\noffer to such men a truly scientific theology. And the Reign of Law will\ntransform the whole Spiritual World as it has already transformed the\nNatural World. Natural Law, Preface, p. ix.\n\nDecember 23d. We have Truth in Nature as it came from God. And it has to\nbe read with the same unbiassed mind, the same open eye, the same faith,\nand the same reverence as all other Revelation. All that is found there,\nwhatever its place in Theology, whatever its orthodoxy or heterodoxy,\nwhatever its narrowness or its breadth, we are bound to accept as\nDoctrine from which on the lines of Science there is no escape. Natural\nLaw, Preface, p. xi.\n\nDecember 24th. In Nature generally, we come upon new Laws as we pass from\nlower to higher kingdoms, the old still remaining in force, the newer\nLaws which one would expect to meet in the Spiritual World would so\ntranscend and overwhelm the older as to make the analogy or identity,\neven if traced, of no practical use. The new Laws would represent\noperations and energies so different, and so much more elevated, that\nthey would afford the true keys to the Spiritual World. Natural Law, p.\n47.\n\nDecember 25th. The visible is the ladder up to the invisible; the\ntemporal is but the scaffolding of the eternal. And when the last\nimmaterial souls have climbed through this material to God, the\nscaffolding shall be taken down, and the earth dissolved with fervent\nheat--not because it was base, but because its work is done. Natural Law,\np. 57.\n\nDecember 26th. The natural man belongs essentially to this present order\nof things. He is endowed simply with a high quality of the natural animal\nLife. But it is Life of so poor a quality that it is not Life at all. He\nthat hath not the Son hath not Life; but he that hath the Son hath Life--\na new and distinct and supernatural endowment. He is not of this world.\nHe is of the timeless state, of Eternity. IT DOTH NOT YET APPEAR WHAT HE\nSHALL BE. Natural Law, p. 82.\n\nDecember 27th. The gradualness of growth is a characteristic which\nstrikes the simplest observer. Long before the word Evolution was coined\nChrist applied it in this very connection--\"First the blade, then the\near, then the full corn in the ear.\" It is well known also to those who\nstudy the parables of Nature that there is an ascending scale of slowness\nas we rise in the scale of Life. Growth is most gradual in the highest\nforms. Man attains his maturity after a score of years; the monad\ncompletes its humble cycle in a day. What wonder if development be tardy\nin the Creature of Eternity? A Christian's sun has sometimes set, and a\ncritical world has seen as yet no corn in the ear. As yet? \"As yet,\" in\nthis long Life, has not begun. Grant him the years proportionate to his\nplace in the scale of Life. \"The time of harvest is NOT YET.\" Natural\nLaw, p. 92.\n\nDecember 28th. Salvation is a definite process. If a man refuse to submit\nhimself to that process, clearly he cannot have the benefits of it. \"As\nmany as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God.\" He\ndoes not avail himself of this power. It may be mere carelessness or\napathy. Nevertheless the neglect is fatal. He cannot escape because he\nwill not. Natural Law, p. 109.\n\nDecember 29th. The end of Salvation is perfection, the Christ-like mind,\ncharacter, and life. Morality is on the way to this perfection; it may go\na considerable distance toward it, but it can never reach it. Only Life\ncan do that. . . . Morality can never reach perfection; Life MUST. For\nthe Life must develop out according to its type; and being a germ of the\nChrist-life, it must unfold into A CHRIST. Natural Law, p. 138.\n\nDecember 30th. Perfect life is not merely the possessing of perfect\nfunctions, but of perfect functions perfectly adjusted to each other, and\nall conspiring to a single result, the perfect working of the whole\norganism. It is not said that the character will develop in all its\nfulness in this life. That were a time too short for an Evolution so\nmagnificent. In this world only the cornless ear is seen: sometimes only\nthe small yet still prophetic blade. Natural Law, p. 129.\n\nDecember 31st. The immortal soul must give itself to something that is\nimmortal. And the only immortal things are these: \"Now abideth faith,\nhope, love, but the greatest of these is love.\" Some think the time may\ncome when two of these three things will also pass away--faith into\nsight, hope into fruition. Paul does not say so. We know but little now\nabout the conditions of the life that is to come. But what is certain is\nthat Love must last. God, the Eternal God, is Love. Covet therefore that\neverlasting gift. The Greatest Thing in the World, pp. 54, 55.\n\n\nHenry Drummond's Works.\n\nThe Programme of Christianity. A New Address by Henry Drummond, to be\nissued uniform with the previous booklets. Price, 35 cents.\n\nThe Greatest Thing in the World. Leatherette, gilt top. Price, 35 cents.\nIllustrated Edition, cloth, price, $1.00.\n\nPax Vobiscum. The Second of the Series of which \"The Greatest Thing in\nthe World\" is the First. Leatherette, gilt top. Price, 35 cents;\nIllustrated Edition, cloth, $1.00.\n\nThe Changed Life. An Address by Henry Drummond. The Third of the Series.\nGilt top, leatherette. Price, 35 cents.\n\nNatural Law in the Spiritual World, By Henry Drummond, F.R.S.E., F.G.S.\nCloth, red top, title in gold, 458 pp. Price, 75 cents.\n\n\"First:\" A Talk with Boys. An Address delivered at Glasgow to the Boys'\nBrigade. Paper cover, 10 cents; $1.00 per dozen; leatherette, silver\nedges, 35 cents.\n\nBaxter's Second Innings. A Book for Boys. Ready, 60 cents.\n\nAuthor's Only Editions. For sale by all booksellers, or sent by mail on\nreceipt of price.","title":"\"Beautiful Thoughts\"","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":24971}