fall into provincialisms of thought; to sink the language of the universal Reason into a corrupted dialect; and so it is better, if possible, on such themes as these to rise above sect and take our stand outside of it, haply if we may stand on those sublimer heights, where we may catch the clearer responses of the Divine word. In the following pages, therefore, we propose to leave behind the old controversies, except so far as to be intelligible, and so far as is necessary to show the truth in bolder outline by its juxtaposition with error.

Impressed with the solemn magnitude of these themes, we approach them in reverent and listening mood.

PART I.

THE NATURAL MAN.

THE ANCIENT DESOLATIONS; THE RUINS OF MANY GENERATIONS. Isaiah lviii. 12.

"These are ruins indeed; but they proclaim that something noble hath fallen into ruin, proclaim it by signs mournful yet venerable, like the desolations of an ancient temple, like the broken walls and falling columns and hollow sounds of decay that sink down heavily among its deserted recesses." - DEWEY.

CHAPTER I.

THEORIES.

"If our native propensities are themselves a sin, then the conclusion seems to be plain and inevitable, that God is the author of sin; not merely that he has made beings who can commit sin, but that he has made beings a part of whose very nature, as it comes from his hands, is sin. . . . . . I am unwilling to plunge into the yawning gulf which is laid open by such a process of thought."— PROFESSOR STUART.

THE actual state of man by birth and by nature is a question still involved in the controversies of the schools. To turn aside to these would divert us from our main object; and fortunately this subject can be taken out of the province of polemics, and brought to the test of sober fact and reality. We will only allude, then, to the theories of the sects, so far forth as to give precision and completeness to the argument. With some variety of statement and confusion of coloring, where different creeds shade off into each other, we shall find in the main that the prevailing theologies on this topic fall asunder into three forms.

The first form is this, that man comes into being burdened with hereditary guilt, inclined to all evil by the original bend of his faculties, and capable of no good until God by a sovereign act creates him anew. But lest we should misrepresent this