Beautiful Thoughts, Henry Drummond [ebook reader that looks like a book txt] 📗

p. 99.

February 8th. The law of Reversion to Type runs through all creation. If a man neglect himself for a few years he will change into a worse and a lower man. If it is his body that he neglects, he will deteriorate into a wild and bestial savage. . . . If it is his mind, it will degenerate into imbecility and madness. . . . If he neglect his conscience, it will run off into lawlessness and vice. Or, lastly, if it is his soul, it must inevitably atrophy, drop off in ruin and decay. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 99.

February 9th. Three possibilities of life, according to Science, are open to all living organisms--Balance, Evolution, and Degeneration. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 100.

February 10th. The life of Balance is difficult. It lies on the verge of continual temptation, its perpetual adjustments become fatiguing, its measured virtue is monotonous and uninspiring. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 101.

February 11th. More difficult still, apparently, is the life of ever upward growth. Most men attempt it for a time, but growth is slow; and despair overtakes them while the goal is far away. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 101.

February 12th. Degeneration is easy. Why is it easy? Why but that already in each man's very nature this principle is supreme? He feels within his soul a silent drifting motion impelling him downward with irresistible force. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 101.

February 13th. This is Degeneration--that principle by which the organism, failing to develop itself, failing even to keep what it has got, deteriorates, and becomes more and more adapted to a degraded form of life. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 101.

February 14th. It is a distinct fact by itself, which we can hold and examine separately, that on purely natural principles the soul that is left to itself unwatched, uncultivated, unredeemed, must fall away into death by its own nature. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 104.

February 15th. If a man find the power of sin furiously at work within him, dragging his whole life downward to destruction, there is only one way to escape his fate--to take resolute hold of the upward power, and be borne by it to the opposite goal. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 108.

February 16th. Neglect does more for the soul than make it miss salvation. It despoils it of its capacity for salvation. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 110.

February 17th. Give pleasure. Lose no chance in giving pleasure. For that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. Greatest Thing in the World.

February 18th. If there were uneasiness there might be hope. If there were, somewhere about our soul, a something which was not gone to sleep like all the rest; if there were a contending force anywhere; if we would let even that work instead of neglecting it, it would gain strength from hour to hour, and waken up, one at a time, each torpid and dishonoured faculty, till our whole nature became alive with strivings against self, and every avenue was open wide for God. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 112.

February 19th. Where is the capacity for heaven to come from if it be not developed on earth? Where, indeed, is even the smallest appreciation of God and heaven to come from when so little of spirituality has ever been known or manifested here? Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 116.

February 20th. Men tell us sometimes there is no such thing as an atheist. There must be. There are some men to whom it is true that there is no God. They cannot see God because they have no eye. They have only an abortive organ, atrophied by neglect. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 115.

February 21st. Escape means nothing more than the gradual emergence of the higher being from the lower, and nothing less. It means the gradual putting off of all that cannot enter the higher state, or heaven, and simultaneously the putting on of Christ. It involves the slow completing of the soul and the development of the capacity for God. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 117.

February 22d. If, then, escape is to be open to us, it is not to come to us somehow, vaguely. We are not to hope for anything startling or mysterious. It is a definite opening along certain lines which are definitely marked by God, which begin at the Cross of Christ, and lead direct to Him. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 117.

February 23d. Each man, in the silence of his own soul, must work out this salvation for himself with fear and trembling--with fear, realizing the momentous issues of his task; with trembling, lest, before the tardy work be done, the voice of Death should summon him to stop. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 118.

February 24th. So cultivate the soul that all its powers will open out to God, and in beholding God be drawn away from sin. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 118.

February 25th. There is a Sense of Sight in the religious nature. Neglect this, leave it undeveloped, and you never miss it. You simply see nothing. But develop it and you see God. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 118.

February 26th. Become pure in heart. The pure in heart shall see God. Here, then, is one opening for soul-culture--the avenue through purity of heart to the spiritual seeing of God. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 119.

February 27th. There is a Sense of Sound. Neglect this, leave it undeveloped, and you never miss it. Develop it, and you hear God. And the line along which to develop it is known to us. Obey Christ. Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 119.

February 28th He who loves will rejoice in the Truth, rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe; not in this Church's doctrine or in that; not in this issue, or in that issue; but "in the Truth." He will accept only what is real; he will strive to get at facts; he will search for Truth with a humble and unbiassed mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. The Greatest Thing in the World.

March 1st. "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow." Christ made the lilies and He made me--both on the same broad principle. Both together, man and flower . . .; but as men are dull at studying themselves. He points to this companion-phenomenon to teach us how to live a free and natural life, a life which God will unfold for us, without our anxiety, as He unfolds the flower. Natural Law, Growth, p. 123.

March 2d. Our efforts after Christian growth seem only a succession of failures, and, instead of rising into the beauty of holiness, our life is a daily heart-break and humiliation. Natural Law, Growth, p. 125.

March 3d. The lilies grow, Christ says, of themselves; they toil not, neither do they spin. They grow, that is, automatically, spontaneously, without trying, without fretting, without thinking. Natural Law, Growth, p. 126.

March 4th. Violent efforts to grow are right in earnestness, but wholly wrong in principle. There is but one principle of growth both for the natural and spiritual, for animal and plant, for body and soul. For all growth is an organic thing. And the principle of growing in grace is once more this, "Consider the lilies how they grow." Natural Law, Growth, p. 125.

March 5th. Earnest souls who are attempting sanctification by struggle, instead of sanctification by faith, might be spared much humiliation by learning the botany of the Sermon on the Mount. Natural Law, Growth, p. 127.

March 6th. There is only one thing greater than happiness in the world, and that is holiness; and it is not in our keeping; but what God HAS put in our power is the happiness of those about us, and that is largely to be secured by our being kind to them. The Greatest Thing in the World.

March 7th. We have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness of eloquence behind which lies no love. The Greatest Thing in the World.

March 8th. Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; unselfishness; good-temper; guilelessness; sincerity--these make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man. The Greatest Thing in the World.

March 9th. We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ spoke much of peace on earth. The Greatest Thing in the World.

March 10th. If God is spending work upon a Christian, let him be still and know that it is God. And if he wants work, he will find it there--in the being still. Natural Law, Growth, p. 137.

March 11th. If the amount of energy lost in trying to grow were spent in fulfilling rather the conditions of growth, we should have many more cubits to show for our stature. Natural Law, Growth, p. 137.

March 12th. The conditions of growth, then, and the inward principle of growth being both supplied by Nature, the thing man has to do, the little junction left for him to complete, is to apply the one to the other. He manufactures nothing; he earns nothing; he need be anxious for nothing; his one duty is to be IN these conditions, to abide in them, to allow grace to play over him, to be still and know that this is God. Natural Law, Growth, p. 138.

March 13th. A man will often have to wrestle with his God--but not for growth. The Christian life is a composed life. The Gospel is Peace. Yet the most anxious people in the world are Christians--Christians who misunderstand the nature of growth. Life is a perpetual self-condemning because they are not growing. Natural Law, Growth, p. 139.

March 14th. All the work of the world is merely a taking advantage of energies already there. Natural Law, Growth, p. 140.

March 15th. Religion is not a strange or added thing; but the inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. The Greatest Thing in the World.

March 16th. The stature of the Lord Jesus was not itself reached by work, and he who thinks to approach its mystical height by anxious effort is really receding from it. Natural Law, Growth, p. 127.

March 17th. For the Life must develop out according to its type; and being a germ of the Christ-life, it must unfold into a Christ. Natural Law, Growth, p. 129.

March 18th. The sneer at the godly man for his imperfections is ill-judged. A blade is a small thing. At first it grows very near the earth. It is often soiled and crushed and downtrodden. But it is a living thing,. . . and "it doth not yet appear what it shall be." Natural Law, Growth, p. 129.

March 19th. Christ's protest is not against work, but against anxious thought. Natural Law, Growth, p. 136.

March 20th. If God is adding to our spiritual stature, unfolding the new nature within us, it is a mistake to keep twitching at the petals with our coarse fingers. We must seek to let the Creative Hand alone. "It is God which giveth the increase." Natural Law, Growth, p. 137.

March 21st. Love is PATIENCE. This is the normal attitude of Love; Love passive, Love waiting to begin; not in a hurry; calm; ready to do its work when the summons comes, but meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. The Greatest Thing in the World.

March 22d. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ's life was spent in doing kind things?