nciple of right and wrong. Paul taught,
in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, that when men descend
to the grade of beasts--and he shows that they may descend even below
the dignity of beasts--so far from becoming exempt from moral claims,
they fall under increased condemnation. The old Hindu systems taught
that there can be no release from the consequences of evil acts. They
traced them from one rebirth to another in kharma, as modern speculation
traces them physically in heredity. The one saw no relief except in the
changes of endless transmigrations, the other finds it only in the
gradual readjustment of the nerve-cells. But we know by observation and
experience that the spiritual power of the Holy Ghost can transform
character at once. No fact in the history of Christianity is more firmly
or more widely established than this. The nerve-tissues to the contrary
notwithstanding, the human soul may be born again. The persecuting Saul
may become at once a chief apostle. The blasphemer, the sot, the
debauchee, the murderer, may be transformed to a meek and sincere
Christian. Millions of the heathen, with thousands of years of savage
and bestial heredity behind them, have become pure and loyal disciples
of the spotless Redeemer. The fierce heathen Africaner, as well as the
dissolute Jerry McCauley, have illustrated this transforming power.

Professor Huxley and others, in our time, are trying to elaborate some
basis of ethics independently of religion. But, as a matter of fact,
these very men are living on conventional moral promptings and
restraints derived from the Bible. The best basis of morals yet known is
that of Christianity, and it is from its high and ennobling cultus that
even the enemies of the truth are deriving their highest inspiration.
Mr. Goldwin Smith, in an able article published in the _Forum_ of April,
1891, on the question, "Will Morality Survive Faith?" shows at least
that the best ethics which the world now has are the outcome of
religious belief and of Christian belief, and he leads the minds of his
readers to gravely doubt whether a gospel of agnostic evolution could
ever produce those forces of moral prompting and restraint which the
centuries of Christianity have developed. He does not hesitate to assert
that those who hold and advocate the modern anti-theistic speculations
are themselves living upon the influence of a Christian cultus which has
survived their faith. A true test of th