A religion built upon the doctrine of Free Will and human responsibility to God is built upon a misconception and must fall. Christianity is a fabric of impossibilities erected upon a foundation of error. Perhaps, since I find many get confused on the subject of Free Will from their consciousness of continually exercising the "power of choice," I had better say a few words here on that subject. You say you have power to choose between two courses. So you have, but that power is limited and controlled by heredity and environment. If you have to choose between a showy costume and a plain one you will choose the one you like best, and you will like best the one which your nature (heredity) and your training (environment) will lead you to like best. You think your will is free. But it is not. You may think you have power to drown yourself; but you have not. Your love of life and your sense of duty are too strong for you. You might think I have power to leave the _Clarion_ and start an anti-Socialist paper. But I know I have not that power. My nature (heredity) and my training and habit (environment) are too strong for me. If you knew a lady was going to choose between a red dress and a grey one, and if you knew the lady very well, you could guess her choice before she made it. If you knew an honourable man was to be offered a bribe to do a dishonourable act, you would feel sure he would refuse it. If you knew a toper was to be offered as much free whisky as he could drink, you would be sure he would not come home sober. If you knew the nature and the environment of a man thoroughly well, and the circumstances (_all_ the circumstances) surrounding a choice of action to be presented to him, and if you were clever enough to work such a difficult problem, you could forecast his choice before he made it, as surely as in the case of the lady, the toper, and the honourable man above mentioned. You have power to choose, then, but you can only choose as your heredity and environment _compel_ you to choose. And you do not select your own heredity nor your own environment. CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES Christian apologists make some daring claims on behalf of their religion. The truth of Christianity is proved, they say, by its endurance and by its power; the beneficence of its results testifies to the divinity of its origin. These claims command wide acceptance, for the simple reason that those who deny them cannot get a hearing.