od", said
Paul of old,[60] and John the apostle added his testimony in these
words: "If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us."[61]

Who shall question the justice of God, which denies salvation to all who
will not comply with the prescribed conditions on which alone it is
declared obtainable? Christ is "the author of eternal salvation unto all
them that obey him",[62] and God "will render to every man according to
his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for
glory and honor and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are
contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness,
indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man
that doeth evil."[63]

Such then is the need of a Redeemer, for without Him mankind would
forever remain in a fallen state, and as to hope of eternal progression
would be inevitably lost.[64] The mortal probation is provided as an
opportunity for advancement; but so great are the difficulties and the
dangers, so strong is the influence of evil in the world, and so weak is
man in resistance thereto, that without the aid of a power above that of
humanity no soul would find its way back to God from whom it came. The
need of a Redeemer lies in the inability of man to raise himself from
the temporal to the spiritual plane, from the lower kingdom to the
higher. In this conception we are not without analogies in the natural
world. We recognize a fundamental distinction between inanimate and
living matter, between the inorganic and the organic, between the
lifeless mineral on the one hand and the living plant or animal on the
other. Within the limitations of its order the dead mineral grows by
accretion of substance, and may attain a relatively perfect condition of
structure and form as is seen in the crystal. But mineral matter, though
acted upon favorably by the forces of nature--light, heat, electric
energy and others--can never become a living organism; nor can the dead
elements, through any process of chemical combination dissociated from
life, enter into the tissues of the plant as essential parts thereof.
But the plant, which is of a higher order, sends its rootlets into the
earth, spreads its leaves in the atmosphere, and through these organs
absorbs the solutions of the soil, inspires the gases of the air, and
from such lifeless materials weaves the tissue of its wondrous
structure. No mineral part