Wichita eagle., 1889-03-19

Cam. A thru, and the ISosu reasonable
exegesis, is that the word "Elohim," in our
version translated "God," means also
'mighty ones" and that these mighty
ones" are among the descendants OF Cain
who had become renowned and powerful
and could take whomsoever they would,
and as the Roman youth carried OF the
Sabine maidens, they seized upon the
daughters of the Sethtes, of whom alone
among the men the text was speaking, the
account perhaps being solely OF them
The Adam (man) in verse third with
whom God will not always strive, is the
family of Seth, who, though the chosen
people, are nevertheless TO fall into evil
ways and their corruption is the result OF
the intermarriage with more corrupt but
ADLER race.
We see here in the very commencement
of traditional history the hereditary in
fuence running in parallel lines, keeping
one family unspotted from the world and
calling upon the name of the Lord" and
maintaining the other in all worldly pros
perity, endowing them with all the abilities
and arts necessary to power and rendering
them warlike and bloodthirsty, but never
theless the latter are passed over in the Sc
lection of a race from which the Messiah Is
to come and the former chosen.
An examination of history-whether Of
nations or families-will disclose a con-
ceres of facts down to the present time
bearing upon the problem OF heredity, and
every person can say with Justice Shallow:
SAY, that 1 do; and have done any time
these nine hundred years" and not be sur
prised at the addendum OF his Cousin Sien-
der: "All his successors gone before him
hath done't, and all his ancestors that come
after him may;n not only the hoy being
the father of the man" but all his progeni-
tors being comprised IN him, and, like all
good Bostonians, he carries about with him
corpulence of grandfathers.
But it has been reserved for men OF this
generation to recognize the great impor-
lance OF the doctrine and to present 1t TO the
community as one weighty with conse-
quences, and bearing especially upon our
physical well being as well as upon our spir-
ituality here and hereafter. No one has
presented the subject more thoughtfully
and forcibly than DIR. Bellows did in a SER
mon in 1859 IN his Church Of All Souls In
New York, afterward published under the
title Of s'Christ the Head of All Principally
and Power" the text being from Collos~
sians 2 10, and the design OF the discourse
being to exhibit the nature and influence or
those municipalities and powers the splr-
ituai realities and relations, which have
history as old as Gods own being, past as
remote as the unbeginning eternity and
future as distant as uuending time.
1.-THE dead govern the living. The past
controls the present. The principalities
and powers that carry on this very age are
not alone or chiefly our ideas, our passions,
our will; we are merely the instruments,
channels and vehicles of the mighty VIII
Of a great historical past doing what the
accumulated passion, desires, purposes OF
our race will have Us do. IL IS the organ
lied and instituted sel6shness, sensuality
and malice of the whole past that coTrupts
the very veins, dwells in the brain and lives
az the heart Of the present generation and
makes the invisible forces Of evil vastly
more fearful and hopeless 10 contend with
than the actual and conscious dispositions
Of living sinners and the real aud overt acts
Of present wrong"
A striking corollary TO these propositions
is the statement OF the British Medical
Journal On neglected population aud the
growth Of crime that 'heredity and the sur
roundings Of the individual are the great
causes Of social failure Much may be done
in the oyercrowded urban districts b. al
tering the surroundings, especially In the
case Of children When inheritance has
predisposed children TO the ready reception
Of Impressions By bad influences, II Is nee
essary that as IL the case Of other forms OF
brain defect the evil should be net by
special care in training aud good and rigEt
surroundings"