degrade the other--and there is no doubt whose society we prefer. Why should it be better for men to be capable of--or, rather, may we not say prone to--sin? Why should their Maker grant them "glorious possibilities" which He has denied to Himself? Why should He alone be a machine that cannot go wrong? Surely there is something amiss in an argument that furnishes such inadequate excuses in order to explain why the Designer gave us natures infinitely inferior to His own. Oh, Thou who man from basest clay didst make, And e'en for Paradise devised the snake, For all the sin wherewith the face of man Is blackened, man's forgiveness give--and take! Some of Nature's plans would appear to be specially designed to bring out the worst side of the diverse nature implanted in man. The plan of the struggle for existence is a palpable instance. Take another--take the plan for the reproduction of life. Could any Omnipotent Being be proud of it? Let alone the unfair division of pain, which the discredited Eden story can now no longer account for, is it helpful to man in his struggle to improve his nature? The plan being God's plan, it is enjoined upon us that the procreation of children is a sacred duty; but it is also plainly intimated that to abstain from marriage altogether is yet more meritorious. Similarly in Mithraism, Buddhism, the religions of ancient America and other pre-Christian cults, the sanctity of the celibate life is upheld. If man is not doing his best in obeying the behests of his Maker, how can he do right? Has he been given a fair chance when an instinct so hurtful is implanted in him that even its natural gratification in the divinely appointed manner is likely to hinder him in the cultivation of his spiritual nature; this although matrimony was ordained--so our prayer-book tells us--for a remedy against sin? The truth is that this necessary instinct, quite apart from its responsibility for much sorrow and strife and quite apart from its terrible tendency to perversion, is innately prejudicial to our moral elevation, and, in order to preserve a healthy, happy mind, the less we allow our thoughts to dwell upon its fulfilment the better. Again, "a very little disorder in the organisation of the brain suffices to cause hallucinations of the senses, to shake the intellect from its throne, to paralyse the will, and to corrupt the sentiments and affections." [223] "How precise and skilful," remarks Dr. Flint, lost in admiration of the Designer, "must be the adjustment between the sound brain and the sane mind!" "How fiend-like," says the horrified Rationalist, "would be the Intellect which could have exercised its ingenuity to devise a mechanism inherently liable to get out of order, and thereby to transform its unhappy possessor into a fool or villain." In the event of the latter result, moreover, man, according to Christ's teaching (if honestly interpreted), is to suffer eternal torment! CONSCIENCE.