220 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



to wrong-doing are only superficial. They agree 

 in the fact ; they differ in the name by which that 

 fact is defined. Original sin, however much the 

 term may have been abused, and false as is its 

 first suggestion, is a terrible and persistent reality. 

 Now salvation, to be a thing desired, must be 

 deliverance from the state out of which evil acts 

 grow. That this state or condition is something 

 which is transmitted, few who have studied human 

 life or history would question. Theories about it 

 may differ, but the sad reality remains that all 

 men in all ages have tendencies which sooner or 

 later result in acts that violate the moral reason 

 and are condemned by conscience. Salvation, if 

 it is worth having, must, therefore, be more than 

 remission of penalty, deserved or undeserved ; it 

 must be nothing less than the purification of a 

 stream of inheritance. It reaches far beyond the 

 outward act, and has to do with the fountains of 

 being. No man is really saved who is merely for- 

 given ; or, as the late Dr. Dale was wont to say, 

 so forgiven that conscience and the eternal law of 

 righteousness are satisfied. When our Lord said, 

 " I am come that ye might have life," He spoke 

 the word which better than any other defined His 

 mission. To be conscious that one is forgiven, 

 and yet that at the same time he is so polluted 



