Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.—Phil, ii, 75. We can put the whole thought of this text in a brief paraphrase. "My friends, you are in circumstances most unfavorable to the divine life. Nevertheless, I bid you attain it. Be greater than the influences which surround you. The tide sets away from Christ and holiness. No matter! Stem the current! Everywhere the minds of men are full of darkness. Well, all the s(ame, let yours be light. Other men are bad—be thou good!" If St. Paul were speaking to a modern audience, he would seize upon the word environment. He would say, "Your environment is indeed unfavorable; but you must be superior to it." This stern imperative of the great apostle raises the old, old question, Can a man be superior to his environment, or is he really its victim ? It is a question which no age can settle for the next, and no man settle for another. It is as fresh, terrible, and important for you and for me as if no one else had ever grappled with it. Let us take it up once more. Modern science has summoned from the "vasty deep" of thought two age-old spirits to which she has given the names of Heredity and Environment. These twin genii have wrapped their sinuous folds around men as the serpents did theirs around Laocoon and his sons. They have choked more aspirations and stifled more hopes than all the other foes which have attacked human happiness in the age in which we live. Everywhere men are excusing their weaknesses and failures by saying to themselves, "I have been born with inherited defects which I can no more overcome than I can change the color of my hair," or, "I am surrounded by influences which shape me ...