and evil; as we listen, we
do not ever hear the clanking of chains; as we look, we know that the
dimness that hangs over the coming time is not caused by "the smoke of
the torment that ascendeth up forever and ever." It is a story of
eternal hope for every race, for every child of man and child of God.

Here are these two theories, then, two schemes of the universe and of
human history. Which of them shall we accept?

I wish you to note now, and to note with a little care, that you cannot
rationally accept a part of one theory and a part of the other, and so
make up a patchwork to suit yourselves. Take, for example, the one
question, Is man lost or is he not? He is not half lost or sort of
lost: he is either lost or he is not lost. Which is true? If he is not
"lost," then he does not need to be "saved." He may need something
else; but he does not need that, for the two correspond and match each
other. Let us think, then, a little clearly in regard to this matter,
and remember that the outcome of the conflict between these two
theories must be the supremacy of either one or the other.

Now, before I come to any more fundamental and earnest treatment of the
subject, let me call your attention to certain things that are
happening to the old theory.

How much of that old theory is intact to-day? How much of it is held
even by those who, being scholars and thinkers, still hold their
allegiance to the old-time theology? Let us see. The story of the
sudden and finite creation of the world is completely gone. Nobody
holds that now who gives it any attention. They have stretched the six
days of the week, even those who hold the accuracy of the Genesis
account, into uncounted periods of time. So that is gone. The antiquity
of man is conceded by everybody who has a right to have and express an
opinion; that is, by everybody who has given it any study. Every
competent and free scholar knows to-day that the story of the fall of
man and the whole Eden story, is a Babylonian or a Persian legend that
came into the life of the Jews about the time of their captivity, and
was not known of till then among them, and did not take hold on the
leading and highest minds of their own people. And there are, as you
know, hundreds, if not thousands of clergymen in all the churches to-
day who are ready to concede that the story of Eden is poetry or legend
or tradition: they no longer treat it as serious history. And yet, as I
have said a good