Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!"

THE DOCTRINE OF MAN

THE FIRST MAN

The climax of creation.-Adam was the first man.He was unique. He was the progenitor of all mankind. He was created in the likeness of God. -He was an innocent man.-His fall.-The result.-The Redeemer.-The universal question.

In all literature there is nothing more impressive than the story of creation. God is represented as sitting upon the circle of the universe and calling into being things that were not. In the midst of universal confusion he speaks; and chaos comes to order! He calls the roll of heavenly bodies; and sun, moon and stars come trooping into line! At his fiat the earth is carpeted with verdure, and air and ocean teem with living things. "And God saw that it was good."

At this point we come upon an impressive pause. The temple was reared; but there was no priest or worshiper. All nature was vocal; but there was no voice of thanksgiving. There was "the music of the spheres"; but it was a song without words. The murmuring winds and rippling brooks could not articulate the praise of Him who created them.

The climax of creation.-It is a stupendous figure of speech that calls us, at this juncture, into a

council of the ineffable Trinity, in which the three persons of the Godhead are saying, "Let us make man!" So came the masterpiece of creation into being-man, erect, with his eyes toward heaven, and room in his brain for all the mighty plans and enterprises of life and history! man the thinker, man the weeper and merrymaker, man the worshiper, man the master of seas and continents, man the homemaker, the architect of thrones and dynasties, man with a heart and conscience; and, above all, with a purpose, namely: to glorify God.

All things were ready for him: the land for his home, and the sea for his commerce; the clouds were waiting to water his fields, and all the forces. of nature to be harnessed at his will. The springs of water and inexhaustible mines in the bosom of the hills were waiting to gladden and enrich him. The cattle were waiting to bear his burdens and the birds to sing for him. It was a good world, a wonderful world. It was a temple indeed, but without a service. It had no ministering priest nor worshiping congregation. But behold, the tenant comes, "a living soul," divinely animated, with a heart for gratitude and a voice to praise God.

The man who thus appeared was called “Adam." And no man of the Scriptures has been more neglected than he. I have heard a good many sermons in my time, but never a sermon about Adam. Can it be that for some reason we cherish a grudge against him? If so, what has he done to offend us?

Adam was the first man.-And just here science and revelation are at one. There have been dreams and guesses and hypotheses about a "prehistoric man"; but science, which is derived from a word meaning "to know," has to do not with conjectures but with facts. The trouble with all the muchheralded prehistoric men is that, before their exploitation is well under way, they lose their credentials.

We used to hear much of the "pliocene skull"; but what has become of it? A few years ago the fossil remains of a man were found in the Delta of the Mississippi, at such a depth below the surface that it was announced forthwith that their original must have lived-by an exact calculation based upon the deposits of earth-some millions of years before Adam. But unfortunately the excavators kept on digging and presently, farther down, they unearthed the remains of a flat-boat. So passed away the glory of that prehistoric man. And thus it ever is. "The mountains travail and bring forth a mouse." We speak within bounds, therefore, when we say that the researches of exact science are in confirmation of the biblical narrative, to the effect that Adam was the first man.

Was unique.-He was not begotten or born as we are; nor, so far as the inspired record goes, was he evolved from any of the lower orders of life. He was "created." At the divine fiat he stood straightway on his feet, a fully developed

man.

At this point again science and revelation are at one. The "so-called science," which deals in hypotheses, may dissent; but the science which grounds its propositions on authenticated facts is in hearty accord with the statement that the first man was as well developed as the man last born into this world of ours.

It is written that God formed him out of the dust. The legend of Prometheus affirms that he was formed out of clay and animated by fire; but science and revelation agree that the human body, as to its constituent parts, is identical with the composite dust, the flying dust, the débris and sweepings of animal and vegetable life. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." The scientist analyzes the body and finds it comcomposed of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, lime, iron, sulphur and a pinch of salt. You can put them in a line of bottles on a shelf. You have here the elements of inorganic matter, involving the possibilities of both life and death. Is this all? Take down those bottles from the shelf and reorganize their contents into a human form. Have you then a man? By no means. What is lacking? The very thing that is here supplied: "And God. . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." There is light in his eyes; there is energy in his frame; there is passion in his heart. This is a man!

In the soul which thus animates his body we find the rationale of his sovereignty over all the