he opposite. One by one the spiritual
faculties droop and die, one by one from lack of exercise the muscles of
the soul grow weak and flaccid, one by one the moral activities cease. So
from him that hath not, is taken away that which he hath, and after a few
years of parasitism there is nothing left to save. Natural Law, p. 336.

September 26th. The natural life, not less than the eternal, is the gift
of God. But life in either case is the beginning of growth and not the
end of grace. To pause where we should begin, to retrograde where we
should advance, to seek a mechanical security that we may cover inertia
and find a wholesale salvation in which there is no personal
sanctification--this is Parasitism. Natural Law, p. 336.

September 27th. Could we investigate the spirit as a living organism, or
study the soul of the backslider on principles of comparative anatomy, we
should have a revelation of the organic effects of sin, even of the mere
sin of carelessness as to growth and work, which must revolutionize our
ideas of practical religion. There is no room for the doubt even that
what goes on in the body does not with equal certainty take place in the
spirit under the corresponding conditions. Natural Law, p. 345.

September 28th. It is the beautiful work of Christianity everywhere to
adjust the burden of life to those who bear it, and them to it. It has a
perfectly miraculous gift of healing. Without doing any violence to human
nature it sets it right with life, harmonizing it with all surrounding
things, and restoring those who are jaded with the fatigue and dust of
the world to a new grace of living. Pax Vobiscum, p. 46.

September 29th. The penalty of backsliding is not something unreal and
vague, some unknown quantity which may be measured out to us
disproportionately, or which, perchance, since God is good, we may
altogether evade. The consequences are already marked within the
structure of the soul. So to speak, they are physiological. The thing
effected by our in difference or by our indulgence is not the book of
final judgment, but the present fabric of the soul. Natural Law, p. 346.

September 30th. The punishment of degeneration is simply degeneration--
the loss of functions, the decay of organs, the atrophy of the spiritual
nature. It is well known that the recovery of the backslider is one of
the hardest problems in spiritual work. To reinvigorate an old organ
seems more difficult and hopeless than to d