December 12th. The soul which has no correspondence with the spiritual
environment is spiritually dead. It may be that it never possessed . . .
the spiritual ear, or a heart which throbbed in response to the love of
God. If so, having never lived, it cannot be said to have died. But not
to have these correspondences is to be in the state of Death. To the
spiritual world, to the Divine Environment, it is dead--as a stone which
has never lived is dead to the environment of the organic world. Natural
Law, p. 177.

December 13th. The humanity of what is called "sudden conversion" has
never been insisted on as it deserves. . . . While growth is a slow and
gradual process, the change from Death to Life, alike in the natural and
spiritual spheres, is the work of the moment. Whatever the conscious hour
of the second birth may be--in the case of an adult it is probably
defined by the first real victory over sin--it is certain that on
biological principles the real turning-point is literally a moment.
Natural Law, p. 184.

December 14th. Christ says we must hate life. 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 world
around; a subdued resistance to the soul's delicate promptings to greater
consecration, out of deference to "breadth" or fear of ridicule. These,
and such things, are what Christ tells us we must hate. For these things
are of the very essence of worldliness. "If any man love the world," even
in this sense, "the love of the Father is not in him." Natural Law, p.
197.