None could enter into life but those who were in downright earnest
and unless they left the wicked world behind them; for there was
only room for body and soul, but not for body and soul and
sin.--_John Bunyan_.


I.

THE NATURE OF SIN.

Henry Drummond has said that sin is a little word that has wandered
out of theology into life.

Members of a secret organization known as the Thugs of India feel
at times that it is their solemn duty to strangle certain of their
fellow men. Do they thereby commit a sin? A Parsee believes that
it is wrong to light a cigar, for it is a desecration of his emblem
of purity--fire. Others in the western world for very different
reasons regard the same act as wrong. Is the lighting or smoking
of a cigar a sin for these classes? Is the act necessarily wrong
in itself?

When a trained dog fails to obey his master, does he sin? Is man
alone capable of sinning?


II.

THE DIFFERENT THEORIES REGARDING THE ORIGIN OF SIN.