sordid selfishness? It is not the particular phase or quality of sin that matters, but the principle of it. The root is there, the motive, the constant tendency. It is "true as the needle to the pole." A sure prophecy may be made of every child in its cradle: to wit, that whatever else may happen, it will certainly fall into sin.

This is the great handicap. Paul speaks of it in this wise: "I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin, which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?" The figure is that of one sentenced, under the Roman law, to be thrown into the waters with a corpse chained to his neck. O strangling swimmer that I am! who shall deliver me from the frightful burden that drags me down? Then he adds, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord"; and, lo! the burden drops off!

But Josiah was further handicapped by environment. He passed his childhood in the palace at Jerusalem, where the wraiths of ancient crime stalked through the corridors and the very walls reeked with shame. Here was a crimson spot on the floor where Amon, his father, had been slain by his servants; and yonder was the secret shrine where his grandfather worshiped the pagan gods. If he walked abroad in Jerusalem, he found himself surrounded by carved and molten images; altars blazing on the surrounding hills in honor of the unclean Astarte; priests, wizards, and necromancers leading the people to the groves. How natural for this youth to go with the multitude to

do evil! Yet he set his face against his environment and, despite the fashion of his time, pleased God. It is a common saying that "we are creatures of circumstance." This is true only so far as we are willing to have it so. "The mark of greatness," said Macaulay, "is to rise above one's environment and conquer circumstance. But if we are left to ourselves, the probabilities are greatly against it.

Lamartine, in his life of Cromwell, says, "The moist, unyielding nature of the fen country, the unbroken horizon, the muddy river, the cloudy sky and miserable trees were calculated to sadden the disposition of the child. The character of the scenes in which we are brought up impresses our souls. Great fanatics, generally, proceed from sad and sterile countries." There is no doubt that our surroundings thus affect us. We are like tree-toads and chameleons that take their color from the foliage about them.

It is so in society. The fashions are not favorable to a wholesome, simple life.

It is so in business. If we fall in with the prevailing custom, we may "get rich quick," but are likely to lose honesty and integrity of character in doing so. The same is true in politics. The "floaters" are the bane of our public life. The man who "floats" makes no headway against wind and current, but always goes down-stream.

And in religion this is truer still. We hear it said that we are living "in an age of doubt." But is not every age an age of doubt? "When the Lord cometh, will he find faith on the earth?" Are not the children of the market-place always thrusting out their lips

and pointing their fingers at truth and righteousness? It is the universal and perpetual fashion to doubt God and the gospel, to doubt the truth of the Scriptures, to doubt the supernatural and the eternal life.

This is the atmosphere we are living in, and we are bound to make the best of it. We may drift with the current of our environment or bend to the oars and make way against it. We may live a Neapolitan life of ease or a Spartan life of courage, as we will. But the man who wins out is the man who stands like Christian at the foot of the hill Difficulty, and tightens his girdle as he faces the upward climb; saying:

The hill, tho high, I covet to ascend!
The difficulty will not me offend,

For I perceive the way to life lies here.

It thus appears that we are alike handicapped; and doubly so by heredity and environment. But there is something to be said on the other side. If these things are against us, there are two things that are for us.

We have, first, a mighty ally in our better self. Josiah had a conscience. It spoke to him when he was only eight years old, saying, "Seek the Lord!" and straightway he began to seek Him.

There is that in every man which enables him to discern "betwixt the worse and better reason." We are made in the divine likeness, tho marred by sin. But no man ever falls so low that the heavenly spark is wholly extinguished within him, until he has obdurately sinned away his final "day of grace.'

Plato felt this inward prompting to righteousness, and said, "It must be the fluttering of the wings of a preexistent state." We are all, in our better moments, conscious of it. Possibly this is why no hymn is sung with greater fervor than this:

Rise my soul and stretch thy wings
Thy better portion trace;
Rise from transitory things

Towards heaven thy destined place;
Sun and moon and stars decay,

Time shall soon this earth remove;
Rise, my soul, and haste away

To seats prepared above!

And our other ally, mightier than an army with banners, is God; for it is a true saying, "God helps those who help themselves."

No man was ever left in the lurch who, feeling his own inability to meet the situation, made an earnest appeal to God. In 1795, when France was in the throes of The Terror, when the streets of Paris were drenched with blood and the mobs were turning law and order upside down, Barras, the leader of the Convention, asked, "What shall be done?" A member arose and said, "There is a young lieutenant in Corsica who has put down many rebellions." Cries were heard on every side, "Send for him! Send for him!" And from that moment the name of Bonaparte was one to be reckoned with.

There are times in our lives when circumstances are too much for us. We are at our wit's end. What then? Omnipotence is at our command if we will have it. God stands ready; but we must send for

Him. To your knees, O tempted youth! God is our refuge and our strength; He is an ever-present help in time of trouble; "a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall."

And from that moment the conflict is on. Heredity and environment are against us. But the end is to be seen from the beginning if only we can count upon our better selves and God. Here is the legend for our shield: "Will, God and I can!"

"This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith." Faith in what? Faith, on the one hand, in one's self. But such faith is impossible unless self has been so adjusted that there is good ground for confidence in it. Are you sure that your purposes are true? Are you sure that you are aiming at the right objective point? Are you sure of your resolution? Then, so far, all's well.

President Roosevelt has given us a splendid watchword, "Don't whine, don't flinch; strike the line hard." Ask nobody's pity, and do not pity yourself. Do not complain of the handicap which you share in common with all. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. Blame nobody. Complain of nothing. "A fair field and no favor!"

It is said that when Dr. Samuel Johnson was relating to a group of friends the story of his boyhood, how he lived in London on nine cents a day, copying manuscripts, so poor that his "toes peeped out of his shoes, and this for thirteen years until he found himself in a debtor's jail; one of his hearers asked