The enormous change produced by Adam's sin in him could not be without effect on his descendants. A man of great energies may, with his blood, transmit his features and his character for generations; his family may grow into a tribe and even into a nation impressed with his likeness. A prepotent influence must belong to him who was created to be the father of all mankind. He inaugurated the line of human life, and its general direction was naturally permanent, whether divergent from the line ordained by God, or accordant with it. God had bestowed on our first father an additional supernatural life as a gratuitous gift. Adam held it at first on trial; he was called upon, as head of the race, to ratify this donation by his acceptance of it. He cast it away in his solemn probation, and chose the merely natural state. This he transmitted to us: and necessarily so, for it has never been claimed for heredity that it is able to perpetuate qualities that have not yet been acquired. The inorganic cannot generate the organic, nor the natural life beget supernatural life. We have inherited what our ancestor had to bequeath, all that belonged to the essence of human nature, nothing of that which was to have been superadded as a special reward for fidelity under trial. This state of privation of original justice is the state of sin. God has not allowed us to abide in this condition. In another way He restores what we had lost. Thank Him for His infinite goodness.
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