important improvement may be made for the benefit of the public. The immediate result of such a procedure is the extinguishment of private rights and the destruction of buildings and other valuable assets. But the end is a very desirable addition to the general good, not however, excluding but rather including a due consideration for private interests. For the law requires that the individual owner be amply compensated for his loss.

HUMAN NATURE WAS TRIED IN ADAM

The placing of Adam in the garden of Eden subjected not only him, but also the nature with which he was created to a probation. Doubtless God understood how the trial would terminate, and was prepared for the result. But it is ever a part of his supreme wisdom to make known his righteous ways not merely in words, but yet more in significant doings, so that all his intelligent creatures may "praise him for his mighty acts and according to his excellent greatness." Therefore Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, mature and perfect human beings; they were allotted a home where they had direct communion with their Heavenly Father, and were surrounded with the most favorable conditions for a life of happy obedience. And thus

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our nature in its maturity and perfection was placed on trial and given the best possible opportunity to show its fitness for eternal life. But our first parents gave way before the temptation of the Devil, revealing a fallibility which probably belongs to every finite agent when left to the independent exercise of his own will. So Adam and Eve lost their fellowship with God and became subject to an endless ruin, unless some deliverance should be effected.

The problem now arose: Shall this fruitless experiment be repeated? Shall other human beings be created in maturity, perfection, and blessedness to fall as Adam and Eve have done? Or shall the plan be carried out whereby the children of Adam, born helpless infants, troubled with many ills and in a state of sinful imperfection, shall yet be so circumstanced as to have every possible aid to emerge from their lost condition and to attain everlasting life through the intercession of a Redeemer? For it would seem that for creatures such as we are, the limitations and burdens of this earthly life, and even participation in its sin and suffering, are useful—yes, necessary-preliminaries for the life of established faith in God and of unwavering devotion to his service.

A WISE AND BENEFICENT ARRANGEMENT From the cradle to the grave man is taught lessons of dependence, of trust and hope, of submission and obedience, of the evil of transgression, of pardon for the penitent, and of the power and the sovereignty, and the severity and the goodness of the Heavenly Father. In this way fallen man is peculiarly prepared to understand and to accept the Gospel of salvation. And this benefit results because each of us had a fair trial in Adam and fell in him. He stood for each of us by reason of that fundamental similarity which exists between all the members of our race and in recognition of which we say that we all possess "the same" nature. For our humanity to-day differs from that of Adam before his fall only in having lost its original righteousness and in being affected by the corruption of sin.

AN INSTRUCTIVE ANALOGY

That an analogy subsists between the condemnation of the race in Adam and the justification of believers in Christ is evident, altho the nature and ground of the condemnation in the one case differ from the nature and ground of the justification in the other. Paul asserts that as in Adam a certain condemnation took place of those

who had not sinned, so in Christ a certain justification is granted to those who have not been righteous. That is perfectly intelligible without assuming that the Apostle meant us to understand that the proceeding in each case was governed by the same specific kind of justice.

The comparison of our justification in Christ with our condemnation in Adam also suggests a thought respecting the method in which the righteousness of our Redeemer is applied to believers. As Adam by reason of his nature was the representative of every man, and consequently of the race at large, so our Lord's death appears to have been an atonement for the world, not as a satisfaction for the collective guilt of mankind, but because it justifies God in pardoning each individual believer. Such may have been the view of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he says, that our Savior "tasted death for every man” (ύπερ παντός, not ὑπερ лаντõν, Heb. 2:9). In this light, however, the value of our Lord's death is absolutely unlimited; suffering for every man he suffered also for all possible human sinners.

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PAUL'S CHRISTIANITY

IF, without underestimating the labors, faithfulness, or zeal of any of the first founders of the Christian Church, we should ask, which of them possest in the most eminent degree the distinctions of his position and discharged the duties of it with the most singular merit and success, would we not be borne out by almost every testimony of the inspired writings in saying that it was the Apostle Paul? Should we consider only his course previous to his conversion and its persecuting spirit, we might allow, with himself, that he was "the least of the Apostles"; but if we regard his subsequent career and the dignity and power with which the duties of his office were fulfilled, we shall agree that "in nothing was he behind the very chiefest of the Apostles," and that "in labors he excelled them all."

APOSTOLIC DISTINCTIONS

Who ever exhibited more earnest faith or more devoted piety than he? Who ever received more