Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/341

Rh theory upon which God manages men. What is the management of men, again, but a thing founded upon human nature? so that, to understand moral government, you are run right back to the same necessity. You must comprehend that on which God's moral government itself stands, which is human nature.

But, again, the fundamental doctrine on which our labors stand is the need of the transformation of man's nature by the Divine Spirit. This is altogether a question of psychology. The old theological way of stating man's sinfulness, namely, "Total Depravity," was so gross and so discriminating, and was so full of endless misapprehensions, that it has largely dropped out of use. Men no longer are accustomed, I think, to use that term as once they did. That all men are sinful, is taught; but "What is meant by 'sinful?'" is the question which immediately comes back. Instantly, the schools begin to discuss it. Is it a state of the fibre of the substance or the soul? Is it any aberration, any excess, any disproportion of natural elements? Wherein does the fault lie? What is it? The moment you discuss this, you are discussing human nature. It is the mind you are discussing. In order to know what is an aberration, you must know what is normal. In order to know what is in excess, you must know what is the true measure. Who can tell whether a man is selfish, unless he knows what is benevolent? Who can tell whether a man has departed from the correct idea unless he has some conception of that idea? The very foundation on which you stand to-day necessitates knowledge of man as its chief basis.

Consider, too, how a minister, teaching the moral government of God, the nature of God, and the condition of man and his necessities, is obliged to approach the human soul. Men are sluggish, or are so occupied and filled with what are to them important interests, that, ordinarily, when a preacher comes into a community, he finds it either slumbering, or averse to his message, or indifferent to it; and, in either case, his business is to stimulate their moral nature. But how shall he know the art of stimulating man's moral nature, who has never studied it? You must arouse men and prepare them to be moulded. How can you do it, if you know nothing about them?

A man who would minister to a diseased body must have an accurate knowledge of the organs, and of the whole structure of the body, in a sanitary condition. We oblige our physicians to know anatomy and physiology. We oblige them to study morbid anatomy, as well as normal conditions. We say that no man is prepared to practise without this knowledge, and the law interferes, or does as far as it can, to compel it. Now, shall a man know how to administer to that which is a thousand times more subtle and important than the body, and which is the exquisite blossom of the highest development and perfection of the human system, namely, the mind in its modern development—shall a man assume to deal with that, and raise and