inite; and the doctrine of Adoption is one of the
falsest of false doctrines. In bitter lack of the spirit whereby we cry
Abba, Father, the so-called Church invented it; and it remains, a
hideous mask wherewith false and ignorant teachers scare God's children
from their Father's arms."

"I hate sentiment--most of all in religion!" said Miss Carmichael with
contempt.

"You shall have none," returned Donal. "Tell me what is meant by
Adoption."

"The taking of children," answered Miss Carmichael, already spying a
rock ahead, "and treating them as your own."

"Whose children?" asked Donal.

"Anyone's."

"Whose," insisted Donal, "are the children whom God adopts?"

She was on the rock, and a little staggered. But she pulled up courage
and said--

"The children of Satan."

"Then how are they to be blamed for doing the deeds of their father?"

"You know very well what I mean! Satan did not make them. God made
them, but they sinned and fell."

"Then did God repudiate them?"

"Yes."

"And they became the children of another?"

"Yes, of Satan."

"Then God disowns his children, and when they are the children of
another, adopts them? Miss Carmichael, it is too foolish! Would that be
like a father? Because his children do not please him, he repudiates
them altogether; and then he wants them again--not as his own, but as
the children of a stranger, whom he will adopt! The original
relationship is no longer of any force--has no weight even with their
very own father! What ground could such a parent have to complain of
his children?"

"You dare not say the wicked are the children of God the same as the
good."

"That be far from me! Those who do the will of God are infinitely more
his children than those who do not; they are born of the innermost
heart of God; they are then of the nature of Jesus Christ, whose glory
is obedience. But if they were not in the first place, and in the most
profound fact, the children of God, they could never become his
children in that higher, that highest sense, by any fiction of
adoption. Do you think if the devil could create, his children could
ever become the children of God? But you and I, and every pharisee,
publican, and sinner in the world, are equally the children of God to
begin with. That is the root of all the misery and all the hope.
Because we are his children, we must become his children in heart and
soul, or be for ever wretched. If we ceased to be his, if the relat