il as God's sleepless
antagonist? Have they not held, and do they not still hold, that he
caused the Fall of Adam and Eve, and thus introduced original sin, which
was certain to infect the whole human race ever afterwards until the
end of time? Was not John Milton a Christian, and did he not in his
"Paradise Lost" develope all the phases of that portentous competition
between the celestial and infernal powers for the virtual possession of
this world and lordship over the destinies of our race? If we accept
Mr. Brown's statements we shall have to reverse history and belie the
evidence of our senses.

But who is responsible for the moral chaos and the existence of evil?
That is the question. If to say _Christ_ is absurd, and to say the
_Devil_ blasphemy, what alternative is left? The usual answer is: Man's
freewill. Christ as "the blessed and only Potentate" leaves us liberty
of action, and our own evil passions cause all the misery of our
lives. But who gave us our evil passions? To this question no answer
is vouchsafed, and so we are left exactly at the point from which we
started. Yet Mr. Brown has a very decided opinion as to the part these
"evil passions" play in the history cf mankind. He refers to them as
"the Devil's brood of lust and lies, and wrongs and hates, and murderous
passion and insolent power, which through all the ages of earth's sad
history have made it liker hell than heaven." No Atheist could use
stronger language. Mr. Brown even believes that our "insurgent lusts
and passions" are predetermining causes of heresy, so that in respect
both to faith and to works they achieve our damnation. How then did we
come by them? The Evolutionist frankly answers the question without fear
of blasphemy on the one hand or of moral despair on the other. Mr. Brown
is bound to give _his_ answer after raising the question so vividly.
But he will not. He urges that it "presents points of tremendous
difficulty," although "we shall unravel the mystery, we shall solve the
problems in God's good time." Thus the solution of the problem is to be
postponed until we are dead, when it will no longer interest us.
However convenient this may be for the teachers of mystery, it is most
unsatisfactory to rationalists. Mr. Brown must also be reminded that
the "tremendous difficulties" he alludes to are all of his own creation.
There is no difficulty about any fact except in relation to some theory.
It is Mr. Brown's theory of the univer