December 23d.  We have Truth in Nature as it came from God.  And it has to be read with the same unbiassed mind, the same open eye, the same faith, and the same reverence as all other Revelation.  All that is found there, whatever its place in Theology, whatever its orthodoxy or heterodoxy, whatever its narrowness or its breadth, we are bound to accept as Doctrine from which on the lines of Science there is no escape.  Natural Law, Preface, p. xi.

December 24th.  In Nature generally, we come upon new Laws as we pass from lower to higher kingdoms, the old still remaining in force, the newer Laws which one would expect to meet in the Spiritual World would so transcend and overwhelm the older as to make the analogy or identity, even if traced, of no practical use.  The new Laws would represent operations and energies so different, and so much more elevated, that they would afford the true keys to the Spiritual World.  Natural Law, p. 47.

December 25th.  The visible is the ladder up to the invisible; the temporal is but the scaffolding of the eternal.  And when the last immaterial souls have climbed through this material to God, the scaffolding shall be taken down, and the earth dissolved with fervent heat—­not because it was base, but because its work is done.  Natural Law, p. 57.

December 26th.  The natural man belongs essentially to this present order of things.  He is endowed simply with a high quality of the natural animal Life.  But it is Life of so poor a quality that it is not Life at all.  He that hath not the Son hath not Life; but he that hath the Son hath Life—­ a new and distinct and supernatural endowment.  He is not of this world.  He is of the timeless state, of Eternity.  It doth not yet appear what he shall be.  Natural Law, p. 82.

December 27th.  The gradualness of growth is a characteristic which strikes the simplest observer.  Long before the word Evolution was coined Christ applied it in this very connection—­“First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”  It is well known also to those who study the parables of Nature that there is an ascending scale of slowness as we rise in the scale of Life.  Growth is most gradual in the highest forms.  Man attains his maturity after a score of years; the monad completes its humble cycle in a day.  What wonder if development be tardy in the Creature of Eternity?  A Christian’s sun has sometimes set, and a critical world has seen as yet no corn in the ear.  As yet?  “As yet,” in this long Life, has not begun.  Grant him the years proportionate to his place in the scale of Life.  “The time of harvest is not yet.”  Natural Law, p. 92.

December 28th.  Salvation is a definite process.  If a man refuse to submit himself to that process, clearly he cannot have the benefits of it.  “As many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God.”  He does not avail himself of this power.  It may be mere carelessness or apathy.  Nevertheless the neglect is fatal.  He cannot escape because he will not.  Natural Law, p. 109.