These, then, seem to be the conditions which must be satisfied before an atonement can meet the needs of the human heart and conscience, whether these are inferred from an examination of the Hebrew religious institutions or are gathered from our own knowledge of ourselves and of others. There is, first of all, the consciousness of guilt, of an offended God, of a law transgressed, of punishment impending, to expiate which some sacrifice is necessary, but no sacrifice adequate to which can be offered by us as we are. Propitiation is the first demand of the law, and we cannot, of ourselves, propitiate Him whose anger we have righteously incurred. Secondly, we long for an abiding union with Him, and for the full bestowal of the Divine life which results from that union alone. Propitiation is not enough by itself, though propitiation is the necessary first step in the process of reconciliation. Aliens, by our own sinful acts, and by the sin of our forefathers, from the life of God, we yet long to return and to live once more in Him. But this is equally impossible for us to accomplish of ourselves. By sin we have exiled ourselves, but we cannot return by mere force of will. Both as propitiation, therefore, and as reunion, the Atonement must come from without and cannot be accomplished by those who themselves have need of it. But there is a third condition, apparently irreconcileable with the other two. This same consciousness of guilt which demands an expiation demands that it shall be personal, the satisfaction of the sense of personal responsibility, and of the unconquerable conviction of our own freedom. The propitiatory sacrifice which is to effect our reunion must, for we are powerless to offer it, come from without: but at the same time we cannot but feel that it must come into contact with the will, it must be the inward sacrifice, the freewill offering of the whole nature that has sinned.