The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1919-03-24

Man crouches and bushes, absconds
and conceals.
He creepeth and fieeth, he potters and
steals,
Absurd. melancholy, Jealous glancing
around,
An oaf, an accomplice. he cumbers
the ground"
Now sin is fact Apart from any
theories we may hold as to it's origin
and nature, it Is a thing that exists
Just as really as the sun, or 'yonder
house, or you or me. Let us not be
deceived by those who would explain
it away as something less than that.
There are those who say that IL is
only n necessary stage In the eyolu-
ton of good--that as the world climbs
upwards from low beginnings 1t must
| as matter OF course pass through
| the lower before 1t can reach the
| higher stages, and that in the moral
realm these lower stages are what Wa
| call sin. A very beautiful theory, but
| for one thing: the consciousness and
! free-will of man. so far as the oni-
mails are concerned, the theory holds
good. The tiger ambuscades and
| kills, but II Is not treachery and muir
not incest The stronger seizes Its
prey from the weaker but 1t is not
| theft.
| But man has conscience. He is a
| free moral agent. Gods voice speaks
in his soul and says: Thou shalt,
thou shalt not" he knows that the
thing ne Goes is either right or wrong
that If he does wrong he is guilty
before GOD and man.
! Sin is as real as our thoughts, our
imaginations, our desires. our deeds;
for II is just wrong thoughts, etc. 1t
! is the finest faculties of our being
turned to wrong uses. II is no less
!. and no more real than the self that
conceives and executes it.
Or, again, they say that sin is only
negative conception. AS darkness
is just the negation of light, so sin Is
the negation of good.
/ The evil Is nought. is null Is sill
} ence complying sound.
But however verbally convincing
, that may be, the universal mind Of
man repudiates it. Sin is felt by all
men to be something positive--some-
thing that definitely and concretely
, opposes itself to good. When | do
. wrong am not simply neutral; l am
= doing something l ought not to do,
t something which but for me and my
? will would not have been added to the
, sum of existence Sin is sort of in
: verified creation.
AS God makes the good. so we
. make the evil. True, sin is NOT
, eternal: but SO long as it exists it is
there; just as real, as sensible. as
. tangible, as effectual as the good. So
that William Dean Howell is only
voicing the truth of things when he
, says:
. . Judge me not as I judge myself. 0
Lord!
Show me game mercy or J May net
live:
! Let the good in me go without re-
Forgive the evil I must not for
give"
T say sin is the us.iest fact in the
. universe. l can make that good, Out
side of it. there is no ugliness that has
! not q redeeming feature.
I'm the mud and scum of things.
Something always. always sings"
The mud puddle reflects the stars
, The furnaces and chimneys of Eng
, land tried the aesthetic soul of John
!, Ruskin. but in one of the public
buildings of Pittsburgh, there are
frescoes on the wall that make even
' the Stag heapsc Of the STEEL trust beau
tiful The legend about Jesus and
! the dead dog,
But sin and its fruits are irredeem-
. ably ugly. The only reason why we
do not see this Is that We will not
. look the facts In the face. We throw
the glamor Of lies round sin. We
Y pretend that sin Is other than II Is
= This Is the only Justification Of wha,
s we call realistic literature: 1t let's us
: see sin as 1t is. lola. He stripped of
( the flowers and the perfumed robes
, and revealed the fostering corpse
Q beneath.
. /. sin is ugly in its nature. 1t Ii.
: e. e., disease. Health is always
beautiful, disease is always ugly.
4 What a cancer does to the body, sin
. does to the soul: it destroys. disfig-
ures, eats II away. Or sin is moral
81 crcokedness. One OF the Bible words
s. for SIN su ggessts that 1t is missing the
, mark. e.. 1t is not straight. Now
l crooked line may be beautiful In ma
/ ture or in picture, provided It IL
9 meant to be crooked, but when It is
} not meant to he crooked, we simply
r say 1t is tout of drawing" inartistic.
ugly So with sin; 1t is "out Of draw
ing"--it has no place in that picture.
Or sin is sordidness What do we
mean by sordidness? We mean that
i, which is petty. little. dirty. selfish.
, unenlivened by single spark OF tho
. spirit. Sin is that 1t is as petty az a
! fly -speck. as dirty as mud-puddle,
as despicable as grave-snatching. as
unideal as dishwater.
. But. above all, sin is decey. 1t Is
unnatural decay. There is decay
that Is beautiful. 1t is the decay of
the leaves that sets the autumn woods
on fire with crimson, russell and gold.
1t is the decay of the rocks that
makes the soil with it's carpet of YER
: dure. Old age Is decay. but beautiful
are the sunset colors Of life we'll
:, spent! But sin is the decay Of that
.. in which decay has no rightful place.
! Souls are made to live and grow for
! ever: their decay their disintegration
is simply horrible-the ugliest fac.
in the universe Of God!
2. Sin IL ugly in its origin. ! do
not mean its ultimate origin; for that
Is problem we can never hope Il
} solve. But / mean its origin in the
human heart. What Is that origin (