Heretofore the editors of secular papers have practically conceded that the religious disputes and conflicts that agitated the churches were matters out of their province and to be turned over to the clergy and religious editors. And inasmuch as most of these contentions have related to matters of rites and forms, or to abstract doctrinal points having little _practical_ bearings on the daily life, such abstinence seemed appropriate. But the progress of the age has at last fairly brought the organized church front to front with the unregenerate world on the greatest of all _practical_ questions‐a question with which every editor of every secular paper has as deep a personal and family interest as has any religious editor, or any doctor of theology, or any parochial pastor. Is it _a fact_, or is it not, that every man at birth is so depraved in _nature_ that every one of his moral acts is _sin_, _and sin only_, until a change in this _nature_ is wrought by the creative power of God, and must all young children be educated on this assumption? The training of the family, our institutions of education, the church organizations of the great religious sects, all depend on this question. The answer to it must be _yes_ or _no_, for no third supposition is possible. Every _intelligent_ man then must speak out in the affirmative, or in the negative, or else hide in silence or in the mists of deceit. In this view of the case, it is believed that the educated class of powerful and cultivated minds, who are, by their position and talents, the leaders of the secular press, will not turn this matter over to their theological contributors, but will take the case into their own hands, and fearlessly and earnestly meet their high responsibilities. Thus they may prove not only the most effective leaders in the intellectual and moral advance of humanity, but the protectors of many suffering, struggling minds, who unaided would sink in the conflict before them. In this exhibition of the position of the religious world, the attitude of this work is very remarkable. It is in open and direct antagonism with _all_ the religious _organizations_ of the Christian world, and that too in regard to the very fundamentals on which each of these organizations depends for its existence. All the Augustinian sects are against the position of this work, that the mind of man is _perfect in nature_, and should they adopt the Pelagian ground _consistently_, every one of them would either come to an end, or change the very basis of its organization.