in the heart of every believer. The three act in unison.

The fall of man is disputed by some who seem to find more satisfaction
in the belief that they have risen from the brute and, therefore, are
superior to their ancestors, than they do in the thought that man has
fallen from a higher estate. But the facts do not support the brute
theory. Even if the "missing links" could be found, it would be as
reasonable--though not so flattering to man's pride--to believe that the
monkey is a degenerate man as that man is an improved monkey.

It has often been pointed out as evidence of man's fall that he is the
only created thing that does not live up to his possibilities. In plant
and bird and beast there is no disobedience--all fulfill the purpose of
their creation, from the flower, that puts forth its bloom as perfectly
when it "wastes its sweetness on the desert air" as when in the garden
its beauty calls forth expressions of delight, to the bird that wakes
the echoes of trackless forests with its melody. Man, only man, mocks
his Maker by prostituting to evil the powers that might lift him within
sight of the throne of God.

If so many men and women fall _now_, in spite of light and love and all
the incentives to noble living, is it incredible that the first pair
should have fallen when the race was young? Possibility becomes
probability when we remember that the conflict that rages between the
mind and the heart is the one real conflict in every life. Reason versus
faith is the great issue to-day as in Eden. Faith says obey; reason
asks, Why? The one looks up confidingly to a Power above; the other
relies on self and rejects even the authority of Jehovah unless the
finite mind can comprehend the plan of the Infinite.