t assumes that man has no vision and no volition; that he is a
mere billiard-ball in the game of existence, which goes whithersoever
the cue of blind fate sends it. That one man rises, and another falls,
is neither the virtue of one nor the vice of the other, but the
necessity of both. We follow the better if we have the accident of
certain gifts, or we take hold of the worse, if we have not. In either
case we are no more responsible for our direction than we are
responsible for the fact that we have to take a direction at all.

I shall not build up words in trying to answer this position. I can
conceive of no man who has some conscience left, however he may seek a
refuge from himself in this doctrine of moral irresponsibility, who, at
the soul of him, does not know it to be a lie. We commonly use the
terms evil and sin as interchangeable; and in doing so we are apt to
fall into confusion. Evil is, as it were, embedded in our nature; and
for that we are not accountable. Sin, as I have said before, is in
yielding to the evil, and that is our responsibility. St. Paul speaks
of the evil he found in his nature, and while he admits its malignant
power, he does not represent himself as powerless to contend against
it. He accepts no responsibility for the fact that evil is there; but
he does accept responsibility for what he does with it, or what it does
with him.

"Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall."

I know with any man the power of evil in my heart; and while it may
come, as it were, in spite of myself, I can determine the question as
to whether it shall stay. It is the vilest heresy of our day to preach
and believe that circumstances can absolve us from our duty; or that
they can prevent us from following the right. The battle is hard, at
times very hard, but what battle is not hard that is worth winning?
Put religion out of the question, and do we find that the prizes of the
world offer us easier terms?

It is the greatness of the Christian religion, that it not only tells
us what it were good to do, but it offers to us the power to do it.
The great teachers of the world have said to their disciples: "Accept
our ideas"; Christ says: "Accept Me." "He makes everything centre in
His Own Personality." And the men who have helped to make what so far
in our human world is grand and glorious, have shown us that Christ's
word is a real word, meaning a real thing.

One who has the