s--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 19