Part 1 (2/2)

January 19th. Life depends upon contact with Life. It cannot spring up out of itself. It cannot develop out of anything that is not Life. There is no Spontaneous Generation in religion any more than in Nature. Christ is the source of Life in the Spiritual World; and he that hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not the Son, whatever else he may have, hath not Life. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 74.

January 20th. It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable world, there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. Greatest Thing in the World.

January 21st. The physical Laws may explain the inorganic world; the biological Laws may account for the development of the organic. But of the point where they meet, of that strange borderland between the dead and the living, Science is silent. It is as if G.o.d had placed everything in earth and heaven in the hands of Nature, but reserved a point at the genesis of Life for His direct appearing. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p.

69.

January 22d. Except a mineral be born ”from above”--from the Kingdom just ABOVE it--it cannot enter the Kingdom just above it. And except a man be born ”from above,” by the same law, he cannot enter the Kingdom just above him. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 72.

January 23d. If we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them.

Greatest Thing in the World.

January 24th. The world is not a play-ground; it is a school-room. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love. Greatest Thing in the World.

January 25th What a n.o.ble gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds.

Greatest Thing in the World.

January 26th. The test of Religion, the final test of Religion, is not Religiousness, but Love. Greatest Thing in the World.

January 27th. There are not two laws of Bio-genesis, one for the natural, the other for the Spiritual; one law is for both. Where-ever there is Life, Life of any kind, this same law holds. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p.

75.

January 28th. The first step in peopling these worlds with the appropriate living forms is virtually miracle. Nor in one case is there less of mystery in the act than in the other. The second birth is scarcely less perplexing to the theologian than the first to the embryologist. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 76.

January 29th. There may be cases--they are probably in the majority-- where the moment of contact with the Living Spirit, though sudden, has been obscure. But the real moment and the conscious moment are two different things. Science p.r.o.nounces nothing as to the conscious moment.

If it did, it would probably say that that was seldom the real moment-- The moment of birth in the natural world is not a conscious moment--we do not know we are born till long afterward. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p.

93.

January 30th. The stumbling-block to most minds is perhaps less the mere existence of the unseen than the want of definition, the apparently hopeless vagueness, and not least, the delight in this vagueness as mere vagueness by some who look upon this as the mark of quality in Spiritual things. It will be at least something to tell earnest seekers that the Spiritual World is not a castle in the air, of an architecture unknown to earth or heaven, but a fair ordered realm furnished with many familiar things and ruled by well-remembered Laws. Natural Law, Introduction, p.

26.

January 31st. Character grows in the stream of the world's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love. The Greatest Thing in the World.

February 1st. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigour of moral fibre, nor beauty of Spiritual growth. The Greatest Thing in the World.

February 2d. A Religion without mystery is an absurdity. Even Science has its mysteries, none more inscrutable than around this Science of Life. It taught us sooner or later to expect mystery, and now we enter its domain.

Let it be carefully marked, however, that the cloud does not fall and cover us till we have ascertained the most momentous truth of Religion-- that Christ is in the Christian. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 88.

February 3d. Religion in having mystery is in a.n.a.logy with all around it.

Where there is exceptional mystery in the Spiritual World it will generally be found that there is a corresponding mystery in the natural world. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 91.

February 4th. Even to earnest minds the difficulty of grasping the truth at all has always proved extreme. Philosophically, one scarcely sees either the necessity or the possibility of being born again. Why a virtuous man should not simply grow better and better until in his own right he enter the Kingdom of G.o.d is what thousands honestly and seriously fail to understand. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 80.

February 5th. Lavish Love upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. The Greatest Thing in the World.

February 6th. Spiritual Life is not something outside ourselves. The idea is not that Christ is in heaven and that we can stretch out some mysterious faculty and deal with Him there. This is the vague form in which many conceive the truth, but it is contrary to Christ's teaching and to the a.n.a.logy of nature. Life is definite and resident; and Spiritual Life is not a visit from a force, but a resident tenant in the soul. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 87.

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