"THE MODERN LIBERAL VIEW" ON THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. There is still another class of Christians entertaining views upon the Atonement whose ideas ought to be presented and yet are extremely difficult to classify, as they may neither be called Protestant nor Catholic. They are a modern product, accepting the conclusions of what is called "higher criticism," and the doctrine of evolution. They make a wide departure from the old conception of the doctrine of Atonement as of all things else in the old Christian theological schools, and yet retain a respect and I may say a veneration for the Christ, and seek to give him place in the order of things as conceived by them. For want of a better title I have called their conception of the work of Christ, "The Modern Liberal View," which, while it may not be as perfectly descriptive as could be desired, will not, I trust, be offensive, and will serve the mere purpose of classification. Perhaps the most complete statement, in concise form, of this Liberal View is made by Dr. Lyman Abbott in his "Theology of an Evolutionist," published in 1897. I begin his statement with what he says of sin. _"Innocence, Temptation, Fall, Sin:_ This is the biography of every man, save only Him who passed from innocence to virtue through temptation, yet without sin. Man cannot grow from innocence to virtue without temptation; he cannot experience temptation without a possibility of sin,--that is, of yielding to temptation; and yielding to temptation is fall. Every man when he yields to temptation and sins falls from a higher to a lower, from a spiritual to an animal condition. He falls back from that state from which he had begun to emerge. It is true that the animal man is worse in his animalism than the animal from which he has emerged or is emerging. The ferocity of the tiger is no match for that of the ferocious man; the intemperance of the brute is far less than that of the brutalized man. How can it be otherwise when the higher powers which God has conferred upon him are subordinated to and made the instruments of his animalism?