=Three agencies necessary.=--You might as well try to make a triangle out of two sides as to try to produce physical, mental and moral perfection in man by the use of environment and the grace of God, when the individual has inherited little or no physical, mental and moral basis for development. If a child has received ideal heredity, but is left without educational opportunities and compelled to grow up in an immoral atmosphere, never entering a Sunday school or church, it would be impossible for him to develop scholarship or Christian character. If one has good heredity and good environment and leaves the grace of God out of his life, he is not what a man should be and will fall short of the true object of life. =Is there a remedy?=--If man’s present degeneracy had its origin in the violation of law; if the evil physical, mental and moral effects have, in some measure, been transmitted from one generation to succeeding ones, until all men are more or less hereditarily degenerate; is there a remedy, or are we the subjects of fate? Must each succeeding generation continue to inherit a possible increase of degeneracy as we have done in the past? =Relation of the three agencies.=--Nature and man create environment. The tendency of nature is to furnish only good environment for man. Man has it in his power to help or to hinder nature. The more depraved man is the more he hinders nature and produces for himself and others a bad environment. If hereditary degeneracy could be eliminated from the race, there would be no immoral environment. Bad environment is produced by degenerate men. Degeneracy is both inherited and acquired. Inherited degeneracy indulged, and acquired degeneracy are both transmissible. If it were possible, under present conditions, for one never to violate a law as a result of God’s grace and his own volition he could not directly and personally transmit tendencies towards evil, and he would transmit his inherited tendencies towards evil in a less degree than he inherited them. Even with ideal heredity, environment and the grace of God, one or more generations could not entirely overcome the bad effects of all preceding generations. =The need of Christ.=--Each individual is the sum total of all the influences, good and bad, of all preceding lineal generations. The inherited good and bad antagonize each other and are modified by environment and the grace of God. If the good predominates, the bent of that individual will be toward the good, and vice versa. His approach to perfection will be determined by his heredity, his environment and by his relation to Christ. Since all men always will be the sum total of all the influences of the past, they will always need the Christ. There will always be enough temptations in the world to develop the heroic in man.