HEREDITY. 



The Basis of 

 Virtue. 



Re-forming the 

 Brain. 



Effects of Old 

 Brain Paths. 



nerve connections with these higher faculties is so 

 perfect that at once unless the line of duty pre- 

 sent complications requiring consideration the 

 commands for right conduct are flashed out 

 through the outgoing nerve tracks, and instantly 

 obeyed. * * * Here we stand face to face 

 with a tremendous physical fact. Every volun- 

 tary act, whether good or evil, beats its own path 

 a little smoother, so to speak, for another of like 

 character. * * * Every day that we live 

 deciding against the right, we are voluntarily 

 strengthening, with our own blood, meshes of our 

 own physical organism which shall presently bind 

 us, body and soul, wretched slaves to passions 

 and appetites of our own nurturing." 



The idea that men and women can long pursue 

 a given course of life and conduct, and then sud- 

 denly change to an opposite course has more foun- 

 dation in fiction than in fact, in religious teaching 

 than in religious experience. It is true that a man 

 who has spent a life in sin and established a 

 physical basis in his brain .that inclines him to 

 evil conduct, may, under the influence of sound 

 conversion and the power of the Holy Spirit, 

 change the whole order of his life and become a 

 new creature; but this becoming a new creature 

 takes time. It is not the work of a day. It may 

 be begun in a moment. His outer conduct under 

 conversion may change instantly, but it is the 

 experience of all who have followed the paths of 

 evil for any considerable time that long after their 

 conversion temptations continually arise. 



It is well known that the conduct of persons 

 in times of great excitement is controlled largely 



