It is true that we fell in Adam. It is also true that we fell in every act of sin, in every weakness and folly, of any subsequent child of Adam. We are all drawn downward by every sin; we are lifted upward, too, by every act of heroic virtue, not by example only, but also by that mysterious influence, that subtile contagion, finer than anything visible, ponderable, or tangible,—that effluence from eye, voice, tone, manner, which, according to the character which is behind, communicates an impulse of faith and courage, or an impulse of cowardice and untruth; which may be transmitted onward, forward, on every side, like the widening circles in a disturbed lake,—circles which meet and cross each other without disturbance, and whose influence may be strictly illimitable and infinite. No doubt, sin began with the historical Adam—the first man who lived. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” But still more true is it that we fell in the typical Adam—Adam who stands for innocent, ignorant human nature before temptation; truest of all, that we _fall_ in Adam, because we are, each of us, at first an Adam. We are all in the garden; we are at first placed in paradise; and each has in himself all the four _dramatis personæ_—Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and the Voice of God. Adam is the will, the power of choice, the masculine element, in man; Eve is the affection, the desire, the feminine element, in man; the Voice of God is the higher reason in the soul, through which infinite truth commands,—i.e., the higher law; and the Serpent, the lower reason in the soul, the cunning element, the sophistical understanding, which can put evil for good, and good for evil. The garden is our early innocence, where there is no struggle, no remorse, no anxiety; where goodness is not labor, but impulse. But, when we go out of the garden, we enter a life of trial, till we reach the higher paradise, the kingdom of heaven; and then joy and duty become one again. Then— “Love is an unerring light, And joy its own security.” From paradise, through the world, to heaven; from Egypt, through the wilderness, to Canaan; from innocence, through temptation, sin, repentance, faith, to regeneration,—such is the progress of man. To me, the belief that I fell in Adam is not an opinion fraught only with sadness. This tide of life which comes pouring through me comes from ten thousand ancestors. All _their_ sorrows and joys, temptations and struggles, sins and virtues, have helped to make it what it is. I am a member of a great body. I am willing to be so—to bear the fortunes and misfortunes of my race.