"Behold I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me" (Ps. I. 7). We are sinners from the beginning; we have forfeited our supernatural principality; we have lost a complete system of graces and super-added faculties which God designed to supplement and perfect our natural powers. We are absolutely incapable of attaining to the supernatural level of life here or hereafter; and practically the human race has precluded itself from fulfilling a suitable natural destiny of intellectual and social evolution without special assistance from a superhuman source. The facts of life, no less than revelation, witness to this. Observe the harmonious adaptations of inferior nature, the continual progress, the regular adhesion to law. Plants do not turn obstinately from the sun; animals do not delight in poison for food; the planets, the seasons, the elements keep their appointed course. How different is man! He is prone to evil from his youth; he must be artificially trained and sternly coerced by law lest he destroy both himself and his species, and with all this he is too often a failure. He is out of harmony with his surroundings, his fellow-men, and with the law of his being. His progress is through mistakes, he learns the laws of nature by the penalties of their infraction, his well-meant efforts are often fatal errors, side by side with his improvements new agencies of destruction spring up. All this points to something fundamentally wrong, to some original evil that cannot be from the benevolent hand of God. Recognize your misery. See that you are nothing without God. Ask Him for the remedy.
