86 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



or to a change of spiritual environment which 

 Christians call the presence of the Holy Ghost, — 

 probably to both. I once read a paper on hered- 

 ity to one who is now in the front rank of his 

 profession — a man of fine and noble character. 

 As point after point was made, an aspect of 

 solemnity crept over the face of the hearer. Be- 

 fore the reading had ceased, he was called out 

 of the room, and taking the chair he had occupied 

 I saw written on a scrap of paper on the table 

 these words, " That is true, and my heredity is 

 all pure devil." Afterward I found that what 

 he had written was probably true. Yet he de- 

 termined that the devil should be chained, and 

 chained he has been ; with full many a tendency 

 toward base living, the man walks the earth every- 

 where useful and deservedly honoured. A Chris- 

 tian would doubtless call this an example of the 

 Spirit's work in that man, and quite justly ; but 

 even the Spirit of God does little without the con- 

 sent of the individual. Every converted man is 

 primarily what he has made himself, by his own 

 choice, as a pure act of will. If the Spirit of 

 God compels any to virtue, then freedom in 

 them is a fiction as truly as if their character 

 were due to irresistible heredity or to any other 

 compulsion. 



