God made Adam with a perfectly holy mind, and then Adam sinned and ruined his own nature. _In consequence_ of this act, God established _such a constitution of things_ that Adam transmitted his depraved nature to all his posterity, just as bodily diseases are transmitted from parents to children. In this way _man_ is said to be the author of his own depraved nature, meaning, by man, _Adam_. In this case it is conceded that God had power to make such a constitution of things as that all human minds would begin existence, as Adam did, with perfectly holy minds, and that instead of this, he chose that such a depraved nature should be transmitted to all as would insure universal sin. And yet it is claimed that by this mode, man, and not God, is shown to be “the author of sin.” This is the mode adopted by most of the Andover and New Haven theologians. Dr. Edward Beecher, in his work “The Conflict of Ages,” advocates the idea that man ruined his own nature in a preëxistent state _before_ Adam. But the evidence of this has not yet been presented. Thus all who do not take the Catholic mode of _mystery and sovereignty_ maintain that _man made his own depravity of nature_, either _in_ or _by_ or _before_ Adam. Condition of infants. The most difficult point of all, is the probable condition of infants after death. On the Augustinian theory they all have been ruined in nature by Adam’s sin, and when they die, go with this depraved nature to their final state. Augustine acquired the name of “_durus pater_” (cruel father) because he was consistent with his theory and taught that these little ones, if unbaptized, were doomed to endless torments. But as humanity and common sense have gained ground this hideous tenet has passed away, and few are now found who do not sacrifice consistency to humanity, and allow that in spite of their total depravity, all infants go directly to heaven and are forever blessed. Formerly some would confine this favor to the “elect infants,” others to the infants of “elect parents,” but few are found at this day who venture to teach that God sends even one new‐born being to eternal misery for Adam’s sin. The difficulties not removed but rather increased by these methods. But the difficulties involved in the Augustine theory do not lie in _the mode_ by which it came to pass that all men begin existence with depraved natures, but in _the fact_, that God, having power to create all minds as perfect as Adam’s, and also the power to regenerate all, has chosen not to do so, and thus has preferred the consequent sin and misery to the happiness resulting from making perfect minds. This grand difficulty stands entirely unrelieved by the above methods. Nay more, they all serve but to increase a sense of the folly and enormity of the awful result, and to present our Maker as the cruel cause of all our miseries, and the fullest and most awful realization of our idea of a perfectly malevolent being.(2)