s turned away from God, which will not
correspond with God--this is not moral only but spiritual Death. And
Sin, that which separates from God, which disobeys God, which _can_ not
in that state correspond with God--this is hell.

To the estrangement of the soul from God the best of theology traces the
ultimate cause of sin. Sin is simply apostasy from God, unbelief in God.
"Sin is manifest in its true character when the demand of holiness in
the conscience, presenting itself to the man as one of loving submission
to God, is put from him with aversion. Here sin appears as it really is,
a turning away from God; and while the man's guilt is enhanced, there
ensues a benumbing of the heart resulting from the crushing of those
higher impulses. This is what is meant by the reprobate state of those
who reject Christ and will not believe the Gospel, so often spoken of in
the New Testament; this unbelief is just the closing of the heart
against the highest love."[63] The other view of sin, probably the more
popular at present, that sin consists in selfishness, is merely this
from another aspect. Obviously if the mind turns away from one part of
the environment it will only do so under some temptation to correspond
with another. This temptation, at bottom, can only come from one
source--the love of self. The irreligious man's correspondences are
concentrated upon himself. He worships himself. Self-gratification
rather than self-denial; independence rather than submission--these are
the rules of life. And this is at once the poorest and the commonest
form of idolatry.

But whichever of these views of sin we emphasize, we find both equally
connected with Death. If sin is estrangement from God, this very
estrangement is Death. It is a want of correspondence. If sin is
selfishness, it is conducted at the expense of life. Its wages are
Death--"he that loveth his life," said Christ, "shall lose it."

Yet the paralysis of the moral nature apart from God does not only
depend for its evidence upon theology or even upon history. From the
analogies of Nature one would expect this result as a necessary
consequence. The development of any organism in any direction is
dependent on its environment. A living cell cut off from air will die. A
seed-germ apart from moisture and an appropriate temperature will make
the ground its grave for centuries. Human nature, likewise, is subject
to similar conditions. It can only develop in presence of its
e