Then every individual would be free to protest against all that he believes to be injurious and wrong, in regard to individuals, to the family, to the church and to the state, and be met in his efforts as a benefactor rather than an opposer or an enemy. CHAPTER XLII. TENDENCIES OF THE TWO SYSTEMS AS SHOWN IN CONTROVERSY AND SECTS. It is the aim of this chapter to show that the chief controversies and chief sects of Christendom have resulted from the Angustinian system, and from attempts to eliminate it from the system of common sense with which it has been combined. The dogma of a depraved nature consequent on Adam’s sin, was a philosophical theory introduced to account for the prevailing sinfulness of the human race. The attempt of Pelagius and his associates to oppose this dogma, was met by civil and ecclesiastical power and persecution. “And thus,” says the historian, “the Gauls, Britons and Africans by their councils, and the emperors by their edicts, demolished this sect in its infancy and suppressed it entirely.” For long ages after this, no attempt was made to oppose the system based on this theory in any of its branches. The doctrine that man, being so depraved in nature as to be incapable of knowing or judging aright, and having no standard of right and wrong but express revelations from God, resulted in the unresisted claim of popes and church councils as the only authorized interpreters of the Bible. Then began the powerful influence of _education_. Every child was trained to believe the doctrine of a depraved nature as a part of the word of God, to be received with unquestioning submission. Thus the most powerful influences were enlisted to enchain the feeble and plastic mind of childhood at the starting‐point of thought and reason. It was also taught by theologians to all the young ecclesiastics as a _system_, thus adding a new force to early educational training by the authority of the church, with all its solemn and awful sanctions. The idea that every man is to receive the teachings of Christ, uncontrolled by church authority, as _he_ understands them, and that he is a Christian just so far as he _understands aright_ and _obeys_ them, found no advocates for long centuries. Meantime the ecclesiastics, as the only infallible interpreters of God’s word, and the only source by which to gain regenerating influences, abused the influence thus acquired, to build up the awful prelatic power that ruled Christendom for ages. At last, with many other abominations, the regular sale of indulgences to commit all manner of crimes at fixed prices, brought intolerable follies and crimes to a crisis. Then Luther and his compeers arose and waged war, not against the root of these evils, but against those inevitable branches, the infallibility of church interpretations and the substitution of outward creeds, rites and forms for the spiritual principle of love to God and man exhibited by obedience to the Creator’s laws.