QO HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



those buildings, anxious rather for rent than for 

 the welfare of human beings. The other boy, 

 however, son of the same drunken parents and 

 brought up amidst the same vileness, is no longer 

 there. His evil heritage has been overcome, and 

 his circumstances changed ; he is a gentleman 

 of wealth, of culture, of real and unaffected good- 

 ness. What has made the difference .-' Not so- 

 ciety, for the surroundings of the lads were alike 

 bad. The younger may have received from his 

 ancestry certain good tendencies that his brother 

 did not ; but so far as can be traced the legacy 

 has been the same. What shall we think about 

 this remarkable and impressive contrast .'' I know 

 no answer except this : in every man there is an 

 untainted power, something which passes from 

 generation to generation untouched by change, 

 and that in this ultimate essence of personality 

 rests the power of choice, which may be shut in 

 by evil conditions and tied to a thousand evil 

 tendencies, but which is in its nature free, and 

 is rarely, if ever, entirely denied expression. 

 At least it may be said that no fact in the 

 physical series militates against the doctrine of 

 human freedom which may not immediately be 

 met and fully balanced by a fact in the spiritual 

 series. 



