ome across a man like this occasionally; he may not be
profound, but he has abundance of common-sense. We see him just as God
made him--genuine, sincere, calm, and clear, touching with searching
words, if not quite the roots of things, yet, without a doubt, the
things themselves. He was the Apostle of that myriad-headed person
known as the "man on the streets." St. Paul, however, to the end of
his manifold and strenuous life, was always the student and the
theologian.

And in nothing does the difference between these two men better
illustrate itself than in their separate treatment of what is called
the Problem of Evil. St. Paul speaks of evil as the law in his nature,
as so entrenched there that the good he would do he does not, and the
evil he would not do he does. Unless we weigh these words carefully,
we overlook the significance, in the connection before us, of this term
law. It implies that evil is, somehow, a part of our being; a
something not our higher selves, and yet so deeply rooted in our
nature, that like an unsleeping sentinel must a man be on his guard
against it to the end of his mortal days. Were it not for this
Apostle's mighty faith in Him who can give us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ, we should say that he stands ever on the margin of
that dark river in whose mysterious deeps are possibilities of
wickedness and disaster, the sorrow of God, and the despair of man.

St. James would not have put himself in opposition to a single thing
that St. Paul wrote about the seat and nature of evil, but to him the
practical question was not its source but its control, and concerning
the latter he is sufficiently explicit: "Let no man say when he is
tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth He any man; but every man is tempted, when he is drawn
away of his own lust, and by his own lust permits himself to be
enticed." You will notice that in this passage the writer puts no
emphasis on outward inducements to sin; he says nothing, for example,
about a devil. I do not assume that he would have questioned for a
moment the traditional teaching about Satan. But he will allow no man
to transfer to circumstances, inheritances, temptation, or devil, a
responsibility which is his own. Comprehensively speaking, he declares
that if men do wrong it is because they want to do wrong, or because
they are not disposed to make a creditable fight against it. So far as