egard a state of unfallen
holiness, which allowed our first parents to succumb in the midst of
perfect bliss, and under God's own direct care and instructions, before
the first temptation, as superior to our present moral condition? If
Adam fell, the race rose by his fall; he fell up, and nothing happier
for our final fortunes ever occurred than when the innocents of the
garden learned their shame, and fled into the hardships and experiences
of a disciplinary and growing humanity.... The radical vice of the
popular way of thinking about moral evil lies in the supposition that
... a state of spotless innocency is better than a state of moral
exposure and moral struggle; and that all our humanity is not entitled
to use development and play, in its grand career of being. On the other
hand, the true theory of humanity presents us with a race brought into
this world for its education, starting with moral and intellectual
infancy, and liable to all the mistakes, weaknesses, and follies, which
an ungrown and inexperienced nature begets."[252] There is far more
virtue in the world than there is vice. We grossly mistake when we make
notoriously vicious characters the type of humanity at large. "Man by
nature, as born and brought into this world, is innocent, pure;
guiltless because sinless; fitted for just that religion which Christ
revealed to operate successfully and gloriously upon; not indeed holy,
but capable of becoming so."

THE ATONEMENT. The orthodox view of the atonement is denied by the
Unitarians. Sacrifices are of human origin, those of the Mosaic religion
being solely ritual, and symbolical acts of faith and worship. Christ's
death did not appease the wrath of God in any sense, nor is anything
said in the Scriptures concerning Christ's sufferings as causing or
exciting the grace or mercy of God. It is not stated that God is
reconciled to us, but we to him. Christ suffered as an example. A writer
already quoted says: "Especially were the anguish and patience of his
final sufferings and his awful death upon the cross appointed and
powerful means of affecting the mind of man."[253] Another author
affirms: "Christ saves us, so far as his sufferings and death are
concerned, through their moral influence and power upon man; the great
appeal which they make being not to God, but to the sinner's conscience
and heart; thus aiding in the great work of bringing him into
reconciliation with or reconciling him to his Father in