"A list of ministers, guilty of crimes and immoralities, though of unimpeached orthodoxy, is the answer to this class of falsifying preachers, which any court must accept as historical and lawful evidence against the pretense that good conduct grows out of belief in Christianity. It shows that the very apostles of that religion go wrong, that its ministers are profligate, and that in these the theory is condemned before we come to its mere lay exponents who less perfectly understand it. "People have been taught so long that piety and morality are interchangeable terms, that they believe it without regard to the facts which demonstrate the contrary to be true. When an individual of reputed orthodoxy violates the moral law they accuse him of being a hypocrite and set his religious professions down as mere outward pretense. But here their mental narrowness is shown, for the immoral person may be thoroughly sincere. The more firmly he believes, the stronger may be his confidence that no mere human weakness on his part can deprive him of the benefits of his religion. For according to the code we are all sinners, and the function of religion is not so much to keep us from personal sin as to save us from its natural consequences. One has fallen already in Adam and is therefore totally depraved, which is the limit of depravity. How, then, can his own sins count against him, when he cannot be depraved beyond 'totally'? His concern is to escape the consequences of the fall, which is accomplished by accepting the Christian scheme of salvation. His own transgressions can be adjusted by prayer and repentance. He conceives of divine mercy as infinite--there is no reaching the end of it; hence with unlimited credit he may draw on his account whenever he feels sinfully disposed." It is unlikely, however, that the believer performs this mental operation before reaching a determination to do that which is wrong. Were he capable of analyzing the plan of salvation in that manner he might doubt it. But he is like other men in the same environment, and, like them, when inclination prompts, he falls. Conduct, in the last analysis, is a matter of common sense, in which the minister and the believer are likely to be at a disadvantage as compared with the Rationalist. In our own minds we are pretty well convinced of the reason why ministers go wrong--they have more opportunities and, among the faithful, are under less suspicion and observation than the laity. Nevertheless we are not averse to hearing other explanations of their tendency to fall. A few years ago the Rev. Dr. Madison C. Peters, a New York clergyman, offered a theory and remedy.