k._" Till men
know they are sick, and recognize the deadly nature of their sickness,
there will be no application to the Great Physician. In addition to the
indurating effects of sin everywhere, the people of India have been for
ages so drugged, I may say, with pantheistic and polytheistic teaching,
that if man's moral nature had been destructible it must have been
destroyed ages ago. Happily it can not be destroyed. Perverted,
stupefied, dormant, though it is, it still exists, and to it we can
therefore address the message of Heaven, while we look up to God to make
it effectual by the teaching of His Spirit. When man knows himself to be
a sinner, when he knows what sin is, then, and only then, whether in
India or in England, he casts himself with joy into the arms of the
Saviour.

I am surprised when Christians speak as if only a modification or a new
statement of doctrine was required in order to achieve full and
immediate success, as if they had never read such passages as "_The
carnal mind is enmity against God_;" "_The natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God_;" as if they were ignorant of the facts by
which these statements are so amply and mournfully attested; as if they
had never heard of One who appeared, as ancient sages longed to see,
clothed with perfect virtue and dwelt among men, and was yet rejected
and crucified by them; as if they knew nothing of His apostles, who
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and yet had to lament over
many hearers to whom their message was the savour of death unto death.
Musing over the controversies of the day, the wish has often arisen in
my mind: Would that the nature of sin was not kept so much in the
background! Would that it was seen in its offensiveness to God and
injuriousness to man--persistently daring high Heaven, while corrupting,
degrading, disquieting, and ruining man! Would that the scriptural view
of sin and sinfulness, which receives such ample confirmation from human
experience and history, was more considered in the adjustment of
doctrine! All readjustment in which the nature and effect of sin is not
kept steadily in view must lead to serious error--error which
misrepresents God's character and government, is inconsistent with facts
meeting us on every side, and must prove most hurtful to man. I am
convinced that while on some points there has been progress, and wise
modification of doctrine, on the subject of sin the theology of forme