possession of his creature.

Christ in every soul.

This is the birth of

God grant that in this coming Christmas Day we may have some new experience of what it means to be born like Jesus of old,- a Son of the Living God!

CHRIST IN YOU.

ANGELUS SILESIUS.

WERE

[Translation.]

ERE Christ a thousand times reborn of Mary,
And not in thee, then art thou lost forever.

His cross on Calvary can never save thee,
Till in thine own heart is the cross uplifted.

Nor art thou profited that Christ is risen,
If deep entombed in sin and death thou liest.

Behold! the Eternal Word this day incarnate!

Where? In thy heart, when thine own life thou losest.

God's true and only Son was Christ: I tell thee
That every child of man must be Christ also.

He who, love-lost in God, gives all to love Him,
That man is God's own son, His well-beloved.

SIN AND FREEDOM.

"Sin shall not have dominion over you."-ROM. vi. 14.

THERE is something in human nature which resists the commandments of God. That is the solemn affirmation of Saint Paul. It is confirmed by the conscience of all spiritual men. Any view of religion, any thought of ourselves, any practical plan of life, which leaves out of sight this fundamental fact, is sure to go wrong.

Let us look at some of the different interpretations of this fact which are possible.

First is the theory of our total depravity. From Saint Paul's passionate writings theologians have built up a sublimely logical conception of a human nature, fallen in Adam's sin, incapable of any real goodness or any successful endeavor to be good, which can be "saved" only by a miracle. Divine grace overthrows and annihilates the "natural man," and, literally regenerating the soul, makes a new man in place of the old one. This new birth is conversion. The new-born man, a child of God, is in every respect the exact opposite of the natural man, who was a child of the devil.

I will not enlarge upon this system of thought, for

its hold on the world has almost wholly passed away. It survives in the creeds, but not in the thought or feeling of the present time. No Christian parents to-day would permit Jonathan Edwards to call their children "vipers." No decent man believes himself naturally incapable of any truly good action. No. thoughtful or reasonable man believes that human nature as such is vile, hateful, deserving of eternal torture at the hands of an angry God. The mere statement of the old doctrines in their logical nakedness is sufficient to refute them.

So we put the total depravity theory away as an exploded hypothesis, remembering only that it had at the bottom of it a sense of the divine holiness, so profound that, in comparison with that white light of divinity, the human creature appeared like a spot of blackness in the centre of the spiritual universe. We are so far from the moral danger of Calvinism that we may safely look upon it with respectful admiration, as one of the most colossal structures ever reared by the human mind upon a few mistaken foundations.

Secondly, we may consider a theory exactly the opposite of Calvinism. It found its most eloquent literary expression in Rousseau. It animated the French Revolution. It has inspired much of modern literature and art. The theory is that all men are born good. Pure human nature is pure innocence. The savage in his forest, the child at his play, is all lovable, all true. But this lovely angel-man, this darling of Nature, soon lost the innocence of his first

estate. He lost his child-heart, and became a cruel, sensual monster. He lost his heavenliness, and became a vile, earth-stained, sordid, stupid wretch, whose only salvation is to "return to Nature" and to become a child again. Now, what has wrought this "fall of man" from his native innocence to his actual sinfulness? The answer of Rousseau's philosophy, and of this whole sentimental school, is that man is corrupted by society and civilization. The noble savage becomes the base human creature which Rome and Paris knows. Bad laws, social conventionalities, and especially priests and tyrants, spoil our sweet, noble manhood, until what should be a glad, flowery garden of a world, wherein all men might live simply and lovingly as joyful children of a common Father, becomes this groaning old Europe, so full of miseries, where Bonnivard is in a dungeon, and Du Barry upon a throne. Therefore, "To arms! Strike down the tyrants!" Tear down the Bastile! Tear down the Bastile! Pass new and better laws! Declare all men equal and free! Abolish slaves and poverty! Trust the people to do right! Let us have fraternity and democracy! Let us cast away the foolish bondage of man-made laws and customs, and let us live on earth once more, like Paul and Virginia, like Crusoe and Man Friday, trusting to the inexhaustible wellspring of virtue which is in the uncorrupted human heart.

It

All honor to this brave and amiable doctrine! wrought the world good service. One wishes it were true. It was a glorious and most useful reaction against Saint Augustine and Calvin. A beautiful,