hts and murky
streams. But the under man is not the true man. The soldier rides the
horse, but is himself other than his beast. Man uses an animal at the
bottom, but man is what he is at the top. Sin is the struggle for
supremacy between the animal forces and the higher spiritual powers.
The passions downstairs must be subordinated to the people upstairs.
In some men the animal impulses predominate with terrible force, and
their control is not easy. It is as if a child should try to drive a
chariot drawn by forty steeds of the sun. When a man finds that he can
not dam back the mountain stream, nor stop up its springs, he learns
to use the stream by building a mill, and controlling the pressure of
the flood for grinding his corn. Similarly, the problem of life is for
the upper man to educate, control, and transmute the lower forces
into sympathy and service. The combative powers once turned against
his fellows must be turned against nature and used for hewing down the
forests, bridging rivers, piercing mountains. Thus every animal force
and passion becomes sacred through consecration to mental and
spiritual ends and aims.

Sin therefore ceases to be philosophy or mediaevalism; it becomes a
concrete personal fact. Daily each one comes under its rule and sway.
The mind loves truth, and the body tempts man to break truth. The soul
loves honor, and passion tempts it to deflect its pathway. Man goes
forth in the morning with all the springs of generosity open; but
before night selfishness has dammed up the hidden springs. In the
morning man goes out with love irradiating his face; he comes back at
night sullen and black with hatred and enmity. In the morning the soul
is like a young soldier, parading in stainless white; at night his
garments are begrimed and soiled with self-indulgence and sin. As
there is a line along the tropics where two zones meet and breed
perpetual storm, so there is a middle line in man where the animal man
meets the spiritual man, and there is perpetual storm. There clouds
never pass away, and the thunder never dies out of the horizon of
time.[3] This view, appealing to universal reason, appeals also to
divine help. In his daily strife man needs the brooding presence and
constant stimulus of the divine being. Man waits for God's stimulus as
the frozen roots wait the drawing near of God's sun. The soul looks
ever unto the hills whence cometh its help. In the morning, at noon,
and at night, man longs f