transformations they effect. He himself called them leaven-to stir up ferment. He called them seeds to bring forth harvests. He called them imperishable. Heaven and earth should pass but not they. He called them keys of privilege-"if any man keep my words, he shall ask what he will." They are the ground of our faith, the inspiration of our morality, the stars of our hope, and the pledge of our immortality.

The invitation was to feel his personality. The sunshine needs no argument. It is its own demonstration. Christ is his own demonstration. In his presence the confession comes tumultuously from the lips of Nathanael-"Rabbi, thou art the the Son of God." Henry Drummond says, "No man can spend five minutes a day in the company of Jesus without the transformation of his life."

The invitation meant a call to an experience with him. This will hold you steady. Do you know why Christians have kept their joy, their faith, their hope, their song, while the scholars have excitedly debated whether Genesis was history, myth, folk lore, poetry? Do you know why it has not seemed to matter whether the Pentateuch was written in the time of Moses or in the time of Josiah? Do you know why Christians have not been worried greatly over the authorship of Isaiah or the historicity of the book of Daniel?

Because they have made acquaintance with

Jesus Christ; because nothing can ever erase from memory what he did for them in the hour when they gave themselves to his guidance and his care; because the most real things and the most satisfying experiences of their lives have flowed from their association with him; because by daily fellowship they had knowledge of him utterly independent of written word, and debates of authorship, and problems of science, and philosophy, and the methods by which worlds were made. What compare all evidences besides the evidence of a spiritual fact which has become the supreme significance of life! They have been steadied in the moment of calamity, they have been comforted in the hour of sorrow, they have been made brave in the hour of danger, they have been exalted in spirit at the expectation of death by the gracious ministry of the spirit of Christ which has come to be their spirit, and the consciousness of this spiritual possession has been a perpetual victory and a continual joy. They know that life has been vastly different since the day they came with full purpose of heart to follow Christ. Sorrow, toil, pleasure, ideal, hope, moral character, all have had a glow and warmth and beauty.

GENERAL SECRETARY, METHODIST TEMPERANCE SOCIETY, TOPEKA, KANSAS

Clarence True Wilson was born in Milton, Delaware, on April 12, 1872, and received his education in Washington Academy, Princess Anne, Maryland, and Wilmington Conference Academy of Dover, Delaware. At the age of sixteen, during all his spare time, he was in a lawyer's office and studied Blackstone and Kent's commentaries. Soon after this he was converted and felt himself called to the ministry. A few nights after his conversion he was invited to speak in his church before a crowded audience. A revival started, which resulted in the conversion of many. Being called upon for a similar service elsewhere, he was soon in the midst of a marked career as a boy preacher. At the age of seventeen he entered Saint John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, and served a student charge. At eighteen was ordained deacon and at twenty as elder. From his eighteenth to his twentieth year he served as pastor in the Wilmington and New York East Conferences, where he had an eminently successful career. Since 1909 he has been General Secretary of the Methodist Temperance Society. He received his B.A. from the University of Southern California; Ph.B. from San Joaquin Valley College; B.D. from McClay College of Theology, and D.D. from Saint John's College, Maryland.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN

CLARENCE TRUE WILSON

"Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness."-1 John 3. 4 (R. V.).

"All unrighteousness is sin."-1 John 5. 17 (R. V.).

WHAT Would life have been without sin? what the present state of the earth, if Adam and his posterity had remained true to God? What the duration of human existence in this world? What the nature of our employments here? What our prospective destiny there? Who can tell the essential conditions of our probation or describe the means of our conveyance to glory, had not Satan tempted and had no man sinned? Who can fancy what even our poor world might have been without sin's defilement and death's destruction? None can think of death with any degree of terror if you remove its sting; and all know that the sting of death is sin.

What is sin? How did it get here? Why does it remain? Are there serious consequences to follow its commission? This is not the time to discuss the absolute origin of sin. That must remain a sealed mystery. The keenest intellects have wrestled with the problem and found no end in wandering mazes lost. There are many the

ories-metaphysical, dualistic, materialistic; but upon these we have not time to dwell. The origin of sin in the human race comes within the limits of our knowledge, for it is accounted for in the Bible.

The historical character of the earlier chapters of Genesis is denied by some; yet the truth of its principles and facts is vouched for by the New Testament and by all experience. Man in the image of God, a personal being, and placed under the law of probation, that he may rise from simple innocence to free obedience and positive righteousness, sins and falls under condemnation and penalty. Thus the poisoned fountain of moral evil is opened in the world, and its streams are universal in the human race.

That sin is here no one doubts. As to how it came I would rather take the statement of the God who knows than the guess of any man. The Bible records the facts and gives us the principles. Its first chapters show us man as a copy of his Creator. This has relation to his nature and in a sense to his character. Take the great doctrine of the Trinity, why deny that as impossible to God, while conscious of the threefold nature of man? How clear the Scriptures make this matter! They teach that man has a body (Greek, soma); and a mind (Greek, psyche), from which we get our word "psychology"—the science which treats of the soul; but he is a Spirit (Greek, pneuma). How many blunders in biblical