entration_. Do not spoil your life, it says, at the
outset with unworthy and impoverishing correspondences; and if it is
growing truly rich and abundant, be very jealous of ever diluting its
high eternal quality with anything of earth. To concentrate upon a few
great correspondences, to oppose to the death the perpetual petty
larceny of our life by trifles--these are the conditions for the highest
and happiest life. It is only Limitation which can secure the
Illimitable.

The penalty of evading self-denial also is just that we get the lesser
instead of the larger good. The punishment of sin is inseparably bound
up with itself. To refuse to deny one's self is just to be left with
the self undenied. When the balance of life is struck, the self will be
found still there. The discipline of life was meant to destroy this
self, but that discipline having been evaded--and we all to some extent
have opportunities, and too often exercise them, of taking the narrow
path by the shortest cuts--its purpose is balked. But the soul is the
loser. In seeking to gain its life it has really lost it. This is what
Christ meant when He said: "He that loveth his life shall lose it, and
he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."

Why does Christ say: "Hate Life?" Does He mean that life is a sin? No.
Life is not a sin. Still, He says we must hate it. But we must live. Why
should we hate what we must do? For this reason: Life is not a sin, but
the love of life may be a sin. And the best way not to love life is to
hate it. Is it a sin then to love life? Not a sin exactly, but a
mistake. It is a sin to love some life, a mistake to love the rest.
Because that love is lost. All that is lavished on it is lost. Christ
does not say it is wrong to love life. He simply says it is _loss_. Each
man has only a certain amount of life, of time, of attention--a definite
measurable quantity. If he gives any of it to this life solely it is
wasted. Therefore Christ says, Hate life, limit life, lest you steal
your love for it from something that deserves it more.

Now this does not apply to all life. It is "life in this world" that is
to be hated. For life in this world implies conformity to this world. It
may not mean pursuing worldly pleasures, or mixing with worldly sets;
but a subtler thing than that--a silent deference to worldly opinion; an
almost unconscious lowering of religious tone to the level of the
worldly-religious worl