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 at least, we often see schemes proposed and attempted, for making the world good and happy, while the inner world of men's minds is left unchanged. But such schemes have ever failed, and must ever fail. For they are founded on utterly mistaken views of human nature; they rest upon the idea that man's heart is by nature good, whereas, as God's Word and all experience prove, it is, as at this day inherited, selfish and evil: they go on the presumption that the disorder and suffering in the world are chiefly the result of circumstances and external condition, whereas in truth they spring from a poisonous root within. The effect may, indeed, react upon its cause and increase it; the disordered external condition which first sprang from the selfishness and evil within, may and in all probability does react and increase that selfishness. Yet man's inherited propensity to evil exists independently of external circumstances, and is, in fact, the true cause of all the disorder and misery in the outward world. The way to cure the disease, is not to heal over the surface, while the corruption remains within, ready at any time to burst forth again, but to cure the internal system; "cleanse, first, said the Lord, that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside may be clean also." The only way to purify the stream, is to cleanse the fountain; the only way to reform and regenerate the world, is to regenerate the minds and hearts of individuals,—which is to be done according to the laws of Divine order, and the commandments of God's Word. The Lord's will must be done on earth as in heaven, in the