of society from the family, through the tribe, into the nation—a progress learned only by glimpses, intervals, and survivals of old usages, in the literature of other nations. The well-nigh universal tradition of a golden age of virtue and happiness corroborates the Scripture record as to an original state of integrity and a subsequent fall. "In Hesiod," says Pfleiderer, "we have the legend of a golden age under the lordship of Chronos, when man was free from cares and toils, in untroubled youth and cheerfulness, with a superabundance of the gifts which the earth furnished of itself; the race was indeed not immortal, but it experienced death as a soft sleep." All this was changed by transgression. The capacity for religious truth depends on moral conditions. Very early races, therefore, have a purer faith than the later ones. Increasing depravity. makes it harder for the later generations to exercise faith. The wisdom-literature may have been very early instead of very late, just as monotheistic ideas are clearer the farther we go back. Social degradation has its root in a departure from known ethical standards. As Henry George puts it: "The law of human progress-what is it but the moral law?" Civilization has in vast regions of Asia and of Africa become petrified. Precisely because Australians and Africans," says Bixby, "have been deficient in average moral quality, have they failed to march upward on the road of civilization with the rest of mankind, and have fallen into these bog-holes of savage degradation." Apart from the corrective and uplifting influence of the immanent God, we can subscribe to Dr. A. J. Gordon's dictum that "the Jordan is the fitting symbol of

our natural life, rising in a lofty elevation and from pure springs, but plunging steadily down till it pours itself into the Dead Sea, from which there is no outlet."

The conclusion to which we are forced by the foregoing discussion has already been anticipated. Yet it may be well to state it once more in summary form. We hold that the theory of evolution is overworked when it is made to guarantee a savage origin of the human race and a continuous upward progress since man's beginning. We grant the principle of development, so long as it is regarded as the purposive method of the immanent God. But we insist that another principle of deterioration must be admitted, as hindering and often counteracting this development, namely, the free will of man and its actual abuse. Primitive man was infantile, but he was not savage. On the contrary, if savagery means a blind submission to animal instincts, man was intelligent and moral. By disobedience to known law, he converted an upward into a downward evolution, at least so far as his moral and spiritual state was concerned. This ethical lapse resulted in frequent and even general physical and social deterioration; although, through the counteracting influence of the divine Spirit, there have been higher aspirations and achievements, and a pushing of humanity in spite of itself toward its true goal and destiny. A very high artistic and poetic development may co-exist with great moral degradation, as in the days of Raphael and the Borgias, when a pope could have his paramour painted for an altar-piece representing the Virgin.

The Scriptures, after all, furnish us with the best philosophy of history. Science does not contradict—it rather confirms the biblical declarations. I have adduced proof of a frequent retrogression in man's history from the writings of such jurists as Sir H. H. Johnston and Sir Henry Sumner Maine; from such naturalists as Lankester, Lyell, and Shaler; from such historians as Rawlinson, Ratzel, and Lange; from such philosophers as Kidd, Bixby, Ritchie, Seelye, Hopkins, Argyll, Martineau, and Herbert Spencer; from such travelers as Mason, Mitchell, and Nansen; from such theologians as Fisher, Diman, Whately, and Gordon; from such anthropologists and ethnologists as Crawley, Tylor, Westermarck, Drummond, and Howard. In the light of this evidence it seems to me still possible and rational to believe that man was made in the image of God; that man's condition was that of an innocent child, but not that of a brutal savage; that he possessed a knowledge of God and of duty; that by transgression he fell into a lower moral state which involved him in degradation and misery; that growing knowledge of the arts, even in the most civilized, was accompanied by a growing moral blindness, until monotheism was replaced by pantheism, polytheism, or atheism. The Apostle Paul, in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, has given us the key to history, when he declares that primitive man knew God, but glorified him not as God; that he exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and in consequence was given up to a reprobate mind; and that his degeneration can be counteracted only by regeneration from above.

XXVIII

THE USE OF THE WILL IN RELIGION1

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. (Phil. 2: 12, 13.)

OUR first and most important religious act is the signing of a declaration of dependence. We need to recognize our relation to God, to see that he is the source of all good, and that without him we can do nothing. But we are not to be mystics, folding our hands and leaving everything to God. He has made us reasoning and voluntary beings, and when he works in us, he only puts us in more complete possession of our powers of intellect and will. Our declaration of dependence needs to be followed by a declaration of independence. We must see to it that we become co-workers with God and not mere puppets moved by the divine fingers. The true Christian is more of a man than he ever was before, and while God works in him, he is also to work out his own salvation.

This Independence Day is a fit time to consider the use of the will in matters of religion. We can easily see the importance of stern resolve in the achievement of our national independence. Our fathers trusted in God, but they also kept their powder dry. They opened their Congress with prayer, but they also at Lexington and Bunker Hill fired shots that were heard

1 A sermon preached in the Congregational Church, Canandaigua, N. Y, on the fourth day of July, 1909.

around the world.

"Where there is a will, there is a

way," says the old proverb; and this is far more true for those who work with God than for those who work without him. Each one of us, like Adam, has a garden to dress and keep,—a garden of the soul given us by God. The laws of moisture and soil and sunshine. are matters of the divine working; in a certain sense we have nothing that we have not first received. But then it is also true that we are not automata; without our wills God will not act; our energy and persistence are needed to keep the weeds under and to get the best results of growth. No process of natural evolution will do our work for us. In the history of man moral evolution takes the place of physical evolution. Plants can be made to grow inside a garden wall that would perish on the open heath. God makes us his agents, and so respects the will of man that only through that will will he accomplish his will.

I wish to apply this principle of activity to some departments of life in which we are often tempted to ignore our responsibility .

And first in the matter of prayer. Have you ever sufficiently considered that praying is commanded? Jesus does not say: If you ask, you will receive." No; he uses the imperative mood: "Ask, and ye shall receive." Prayer is not optional; it is a duty. "Men ought always to pray and not to faint." We are to put will into prayer, and to pray hardest when it is hardest to pray. When we pray, we are to will the answer, to expect that our praying will not be in vain; nay, to take what we ask, with the grasp of faith, and to believe that we have the petitions that we asked.