Part 5 (2/2)
The Changed Life, p. 40.
August 24th. Under the right conditions it is as natural for character to become beautiful as for a flower; and if on G.o.d's earth there is not some machinery for effecting it, the supreme gift to the world has been forgotten. This is simply what man was made for. With Browning: ”I say that Man was made to grow, not stop.” The Changed Life, p. 10.
August 25th. How can modern men today make Christ, the absent Christ, their most constant companion still? The answer is that Friends.h.i.+p is a spiritual thing. It is independent of Matter, or s.p.a.ce, or Time. That which I love in my friend is not that which I see. What influences me in my friend is not his body but his spirit. The Changed Life, p. 37.
August 26th. Love should be the supreme thing--because it is going to last; because in the nature of things it is an Eternal Life. It is a thing that we are living now, not that we get when we die; that we shall have a poor chance of getting when we die unless we are living now. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 58.
August 27th. When will it be seen that the characteristic of the Christian Religion is its Life, that a true theology must begin with a Biology? Theology is the Science of G.o.d. Why will men treat G.o.d as inorganic? Natural Law, p. 297.
August 28th. We should be forsaking the lines of nature were we to imagine for a moment that the new creature was to be formed out of nothing. Nothing can be made out of nothing. Matter is uncreatable and indestructible; Nature and man can only form and transform. Hence when a new animal is made, no new clay is made. Life merely enters into already existing matter, a.s.similates more of the same sort and rebuilds it. The spiritual Artist works in the same way. He must have a peculiar kind of protoplasm, a basis of life, and that must be already existing. Natural Law, p. 297.
August 29th. However active the intellectual or moral life may be, from the point of view of this other Life it is dead. That which is flesh is flesh. It wants, that is to say, the kind of Life which const.i.tutes the difference between the Christian and the not-a-Christian, It has not yet been ”born of the Spirit.” Natural Law, p. 299.
August 30th. The protoplasm in man has a something in addition to its instincts or its habits. It has a capacity for G.o.d. In this capacity for G.o.d lies its receptivity; it is the very protoplasm that was necessary.
The chamber is not only ready to receive the new Life, but the Guest is expected, and, till He comes, is missed. Till then the soul longs and yearns, wastes and pines, waving its tentacles piteously in the empty air, feeling after G.o.d if so be that it may find Him. This is not peculiar to the protoplasm of the Christian's soul. In every land and in every age there have been altars to the Known or Unknown G.o.d. Natural Law, p. 300.
August 31st. It is now agreed as a mere question of anthropology that the universal language of the human soul has always been ”I perish with hunger.” This is what fits it for Christ. There is a grandeur in this cry from the depths which makes its very unhappiness sublime. Natural Law, p.
300.
September 1st. In reflecting the character of Christ, it is no real obstacle that we may never have been in visible contact with Himself.
Many men know Dante better than their own fathers. He influences them more. As a spiritual presence he is more near to them, as a spiritual force more real. Is there any reason why a greater than . . . Dante should not also instruct, inspire, and mould the characters of men? The Changed Life, pp. 38, 52.
September 2d. Mark this distinction. . . . Imitation is mechanical, reflection organic. The one is occasional, the other habitual. In the one case, man comes to G.o.d and imitates Him; in the other, G.o.d comes to man and imprints Himself upon him. It is quite true that there is an imitation of Christ which amounts to reflection. But Paul's term includes all that the other holds, and is open to no mistake. ”Whom having not seen, I love.” The Changed Life, p. 39.
September 3d. In paraphrase: We all reflecting as a mirror the character of Christ are transformed into the same Image from character to character--from a poor character to a better one, from a better one to one a little better still, from that to one still more complete, until by slow degrees the Perfect Image is attained. Here the solution of the problem of sanctification is compressed into a sentence: Reflect the character of Christ and you will become like Christ. The Changed Life, p.
24.
September 4th. Not more certain is it that it is something outside the thermometer that produces a change in the thermometer, than it is something outside the soul of man that produces a moral change upon him.
That he must be susceptible to that change, that he must be a party to it, goes without saying; but that neither his apt.i.tude nor his will can produce it is equally certain. The Changed Life, p. 20.
September 5th. Just as in an organism we have these three things-- formative matter, formed matter, and the forming principle or life; so in the soul we have the old nature, the renewed nature, and. the transforming Life. Natural Law, p. 302.
September 6th. Is it hopeless to point out that one of the most recognizable characteristics of life is its unrecognizableness, and that the very token of its spiritual nature lies in its being beyond the grossness of our eyes? Natural Law, p. 302.
September 7th. According to the doctrine of Bio-genesis, life can only come from life. It was Christ's additional claim that His function in the world, was to give men Life. ”I am come that ye might have Life, and that ye might have it more abundantly.” This could, not refer to the natural life, for men had that already. He that hath the Son hath another Life.
”Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you.” Natural Law, p. 303.
September 8th. The recognition of the Ideal is the first step in the direction of Conformity. But let it be clearly observed that it is but a step. There is no vital connection between merely seeing the Ideal and being conformed to it. Thousands admire Christ who never become Christians. Natural Law, p. 306.
September 9th. For centuries men have striven to find out ways and means to conform themselves to the Christ Life. Impressive motives have been pictured, the proper circ.u.mstances arranged, the direction of effort defined, and men have toiled, struggled, and agonized to conform themselves to the Image of the Son. Can the protoplasm CONFORM ITSELF to its type? Can the embryo FAs.h.i.+ON ITSELF? Is Conformity to Type produced by the matter OR BY THE LIFE, by the protoplasm or by the Type? Is organization the cause of life or the effect of it? It is the effect of it. Conformity to Type, therefore, is secured by the type. Christ makes the Christian. Natural Law, p. 307.
September 10th. O preposterous and vain man, thou who couldest not make a fingernail of thy body, thinkest thou to fas.h.i.+on this wonderful, mysterious, subtle soul of thine after the ineffable Image? Wilt thou ever permit thyself TO BE conformed to the Image of the Son? Wilt thou, who canst not add a cubit to thy stature, submit TO BE raised by the Type-Life within thee to the perfect stature of Christ Natural Law, p.
308.
September 11th. Men will still experiment ”by works of righteousness which they have done” to earn the Ideal life. The doctrine of Human Inability, as the Church calls it, has always been objectionable to men who do not know themselves. Natural Law, p. 309.
September 12th. Let man choose Life; let him daily nourish his soul; let him forever starve the old life; let him abide continuously as a living branch in the Vine, and the True-Vine Life will flow into his soul, a.s.similating, renewing, conforming to Type, till Christ, pledged by His own law, be formed in him. Natural Law, p. 312.
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