st expression of the divine nature. The essential of all love
is self-giving; and the peculiarity of God's love is the communication
and imparting of Himself to His creatures. The love of God finds its
highest manifestation in the gift and sacrifice of His Son. He is the
supreme personality in history, revealing God in and to the world. In
the light of what Christ is we know what God is, and from His
revelation there flows a new and ever-deepening experience of the
divine Being.

2. Christian Ethics presupposes the _Christian doctrine of Sin_. It
is not the province of Ethics to discuss minutely the origin of evil or
propound a theory of sin. But it must see to it that the view it takes
is consistent with the truths of revelation and in harmony with the
facts of life. A false or inadequate conception of sin is as
detrimental to Ethics as it is to Dogmatics; and upon our doctrine of
evil depends very largely our interpretation of life in regard to its
difficulties and purposes, its trials and triumphs. In the meantime it
is enough to remark that considerable vagueness of idea and looseness
of expression exist concerning this subject.

While some regard sin simply as a _defect_ or shortcoming, a missing of
the mark, as the Greek word _hamartia_ implies, others treat it as a
_disease_, or infirmity of the flesh--a malady affecting the physical
constitution which may be {29} incurred by heredity or induced by
environment. In both cases it is regarded as a misfortune, rather than
a fault, or even as a fate from which the notion of guilt is absent.
While there is an element of truth in these representations, they are
defective in so far as they do not take sufficient account of the
personal and determinative factor in all sinful acts. The Christian
view, though not denying that physical weakness and the influence of
heredity and environment do, in many cases, affect conduct, affirms
that there is a personal element always present which these conditions
do not explain. Sin is not merely negative. It is something positive,
not so much an imperfection as a trespass. It is to be accounted for
not as an inherited or inherent malady, but as a self-chosen
perversity. It belongs to the spirit rather than to the body, and
though it has its seat in the heart and in the emotions, it has to do
principally with the will. 'Every man is tempted when he is drawn away
by his own lust and enticed. Then when lust has conceived