or hear some new thing. "Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' Hill and said: "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing He is Lord of heaven and earth." (Acts xvii, 16-24.)

These philosophers were very much like such philosophers as Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, and other representative scientists, who spent their time in nothing else than "evolution," so that they have erected an altar to Agnosticism, which may fitly be called "their Unknown. God," whom they worship. This is their idol. This language seems almost prophetic of our times.

An exclusive study of matter strongly leads to skepticism as to a spiritual world, not necessarily, but such is painfully true with many otherwise worthy and honorable men, men who have contributed valuable knowledge to the world. What greatly surprises me is, that so many clergymen to-day are running after this fad lest they be classed with those "who are camping with Moses and Paul." There has been so much said and written about "philosophic culture and scholarship" in connection with Evolution, that one might begin to think that nobody but evolutionists were scholars; but I can assure you that there are more than seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to this new Baal. I am proud to number myself among this minority, if it be in fact a minority.

Had I time I could bring valuable information from recent explorations from Nineveh and Babylon in archæology confirmatory of the Bible account of Creation and the Sacred History, but this essay or sermon is already too long.

INTRODUCTION OF MORAL EVIL INTO OUR

WORLD.

LECTURE TO STUDENTS.

THIS subject has been fruitful of extensive and bitter controversy for many centuries past. It is a subject that troubles many well-meaning persons at the present. Young Christians and many who favor Christianity are annoyed with it, and at a loss to answer the many objections brought against the Bible account of it. How to reconcile the permission of our First Parents' sin with the goodness and justice of God is what they are puzzled to do; yet they feel confident that somehow or other God must be both good and just. To remove some of these perplexities, and answer some of the infidel aspersions cast upon the Divine glory, is the design of the present lecture. Since many of the greatest minds of the past and present have given their best energies and talents to the solution of this intricate problem, and have failed to satisfy all, it would be the height of presumption in us to promise, or even intimate, that we shall be able to free the subject from all of the perplexities surrounding it. If we shall be able to remove some of the graver difficulties encumbering it, our purpose will have been accomplished. We hope not to awaken an expectation that we shall not be able to satisfy.

The Scripture account of the introduction of sin into this our world is straightforward, succinct, and given with an air of honesty that challenges our credence. There is nothing at all improbable in the account thereof. The account given us of the Fall is so familiar with us all, that we will not spend time to quote or particularize. We will simply use Paul's laconic and all-comprehensive statement of it as the proposition or basis of this whole question, namely: "Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and death passed upon all men." (Rom. v, 12.)

It ought to be remarked, that some of the objections we propose combating get no little of their strength and

plausibility from doctrines held by a respectable part of the Christian Church, and from some concessions made by the Christian world generally. Such is the doctrine of Necessity; or that whatever comes to pass was predetermined by God; that because God foreknows all things, therefore they come to pass because He foresees them; and that because God is omnipotent He can perform things that are manifestly contradictory in themselves. To satisfy you that this is not bare assertion, allow us briefly to quote the views of some good and great men whom we revere and love for their excellences: The sweet-spirited Melanchthon says in his Comments on Romans, that “God wrought all things, evil as well as good; he was the Author of David's adultery and the treason of Judas, as well as of Paul's conversion." Luther calls "the foreknowledge of God a thunderbolt to dash the doctrine of free-will to atoms." Dick, the theologian, says: "If our volitions be foreseen, we can no more avoid them than we can pluck the sun out of the heavens." How such views can be made consistent with Divine justice and goodness, and with the facts and the experiences of most men touching the voluntary character of their actions, requires a credulity that we confess ourselves total strangers to. Now how can those entertaining the above views meet this celebrated argument of the infidel Cudworth? "The supposed Deity of the world was either willing to abolish all evils, but not able; or he was able, but not willing. This latter is the only thing that answers fully to the notion of a God. Now the supposed Creator of all things was not thus both able and willing to abolish all evils is plain, because there would have been no evils at all left. Wherefore, since there is such a deluge of evils overflowing all, it must needs be that either He was willing and not able to remove them, and then He was impotent; or else He was able and not willing, and then He was envious; or lastly, He was neither able nor willing, and then He was both impotent and envious." The real difficulty in this argument can not be met by the advocates of necessity. The reason of this is, their system is based on a false psychology or

division of the human mind. The Will and Affections have been confounded by them, or rendered identical. There are three divisions in the human mind, instead of two, viz. the Intellect, the Affections, and the Will. This natural division is now held by the first mental philosophers of the day. This division, if attended to, will go far to establish the freedom of the Will and lay a sure foundation for vindicating the Divine holiness and goodness from the irreverent imputations and sophistical arguments of infidelity.

The offices of these different faculties, when applied to these powers of the mind, will be found to apply to them in a widely different sense. To illustrate this, suppose that some article of food be presented to the intellect. Now if the intellect takes cognizance of this food at all, its decisions are positively necessitated. It must see that there is so much, that it is of such a kind, that it is of such a color and figure. Such a decision it can not but make. Suppose now this same article of food be brought before the Affections, as for instance the appetites or desirive nature. It of necessity will experience certain drawings towards the food; that is, certain emotions will be awakened. A desire to eat will be the consequence. This is a matter of stern necessity. The appetites can not avoid giving such affections or emotions. But bring the same article of food before the Will for its decision. Now it must be evident to every one who has any knowledge of the workings of his mind, that there is not any such compulsion or necessity, that the Will should refuse or choose this food that there was in the former cases. All the philosophizing in the world can not set aside the experience of men on this point. It is a matter of almost universal consciousness that this is so, however difficult it may be to satisfactorily explain it. The first and second. instances are not properly speaking the acts of man-or at least moral acts-in the same sense that the choice or rejection of the food by the Will is. Here it is that human liberty is to be found. It is in the region of the Will, and not in the Intellectual or Desirive Natures.

It is this determining power of the Will that renders actions properly our own, and gives them the character of being good or bad, virtuous or vicious. Apply this simple test to the temptation of our First Parents, and it is quite an easy thing to see that they had the power of resisting or yielding to the seductive temptation of the fallen Angel. The act was purely their own, and not necessitated. It was this that stamped their act with such enormity and flagrancy. Had their act herein been necessitated, it had not been virtuous in them to have maintained their integrity nor sinful to have yielded to what they could not avoid by a stern, unalterable decree. It is no marvel then that the pious Necessitarian can not rescue himself from the logic of the infidel, so long as he bases his doctrine on a false psychology or division of the mind. We conceive that these views of the Necessitarian, which are not only at war with the Divine goodness and justice, but also with human experience, lend a potency to the arguments of the enemies of Christianity, that they never could have had for them.

Let us examine this celebrated argument of the skeptic by this rational division of the mind, and see what its real strength and weight is. We have no desire to underestimate this argument, therefore we will state it in its fullest strength. The better to understand it, we will give it again. It is substantially this: Sin exists. This is admitted on all hands. It exists by the permission of God. This God is held to be a Being of infinite perfections. It is also admitted that sin is that detestable thing which God hates. It is also granted that sin is the cause of nearly all the misery and sorrow known in our world. Now, why did God create a being who by the abuse of his liberty would infallibly entail such a calamity upon all his posterity? Now, the Creater was either willing, but not able to prevent the introduction of sin into our world; or else He was able, but not willing or else He was both able and willing. No other view will fill our notion of God. He has not prevented it; therefore He was unable or unwilling, or both. If unable to prevent it,