o it, if it is below
him--and if he is doing right only when others are looking he is sure to
find a time when he thinks he is unobserved, and then he takes a
vacation and falls. One needs the inner strength which comes with the
conscious presence of a personal God. If those who are thus fortified
sometimes yield to temptation, how helpless and hopeless must those be
who rely upon their own strength alone!

There are difficulties to be encountered in religion, but there are
difficulties to be encountered everywhere. If Christians sometimes have
doubts and fears, unbelievers have more doubts and greater fears. I
passed through a period of skepticism when I was in college and I have
been glad ever since that I became a member of the church before I left
home for college, for it helped me during those trying days. And the
college days cover the dangerous period in the young man's life; he is
just coming into possession of his powers, and feels stronger than he
ever feels afterward--and he thinks he knows more than he ever does
know.

It was at this period that I became confused by the different theories
of creation. But I examined these theories and found that they all
assumed something to begin with. You can test this for yourselves.
The nebular hypothesis, for instance, assumes that matter and force
existed--matter in particles infinitely fine and each particle
separated from every other particle by space infinitely great.
Beginning with this assumption, force working on matter--according
to this hypothesis--created a universe. Well, I have a right to assume,
and I prefer to assume, a Designer back of the design--a Creator back
of the creation; and no matter how long you draw out the process of
creation, so long as God stands back of it you cannot shake my faith in
Jehovah. In Genesis it is written that, in the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth, and I can stand on that proposition until I
find some theory of creation that goes farther back than "the beginning."
We must begin with something--we must start somewhere--and the Christian
begins with God.

I do not carry the doctrine of evolution as far as some do; I am not yet
convinced that man is a lineal descendant of the lower animals. I do not
mean to find fault with you if you want to accept the theory; all I mean
to say is that while you may trace your ancestry back to the monkey if
you find pleasure or pride in doing so, you shall not connect me with