ds and thoughts, and may fix our attention
definitely and earnestly on that which ought to be the goal of all our
endeavor, our enthusiasm and our hope.

Let us, then, look for just a few moments at this theory, and see what
it means and implies.

It is said that our first father was put on probation, was called upon
to decide, not for himself only, but for all his descendants, as to
what the future history of the inhabitants of this planet should be.
Two famous books were published only a few years ago by Dr. Edward
Beecher, the eldest son in that famous family. These were "The Conflict
of Ages" and "The Concord of Ages." Dr. Beecher argued that anything
like a fair probation on the part of Adam was an impossibility. This in
the face of the prevailing beliefs of the time when the books were
written. He said that, if a man were to choose on such a momentous
question as this, choose adequately, choose fairly, he must be so
circumstanced and endowed that he could comprehend the entire result of
his choice. He must be able to look down the ages imaginatively, and
see on one hand all the line of sin and misery, of death, finite and
eternal, which should issue from his choosing in one direction. He must
be able to comprehend all the good, the music, the joy, the beauty, the
glory, the infinite perfectibility, in this world and the next, which
should follow his choice in the other direction. And he said that Adam
had no such opportunity as that, and was not endowed with the ability
or the experience to make any such momentous choice; in other words,
that the fundamental basis of the whole theological scheme of the world
was unjust and unfair.

This was Dr. Beecher's contention. How did he get over the difficulty?
He believed in the pre-existence of human souls, and that in some other
life before Adam there must have been an intelligent and fair choice,
and that we here and now are only fighting out one stage of the results
of that far-off decision. But, if you will stop to think of it a
moment, you will see that this puts the difficulty only a little
further back: it does not solve it. How does this first person, if it
is so, countless millions of ages ago, happen to be endowed with
intelligence and experience and ability enough to make such a momentous
choice?

And now just consider a moment. Is it conceivable that a sane person
should intelligently choose evil, unless he had some inherited bias or
tendency in that dire