law; second, that man be acquainted with it; third, that he be a free agent, that is to say, that he have the choice of rejecting or accepting the law, of obeying or disobeying it. Hence sin is possible only on the part of those creatures which have been created with possession of reason and choice. And the Law which has been enacted for such creatures, among which man is included, is their holy Creator's will and desire. God has revealed His will in two ways. First, in the inner man, that is, in man's reason and conscience, which everyone possesses, even a savage, and by means of which men are aware of the existence of God and of what is acceptable or displeasing to Him, that is what is good and what is evil. Conscience, therefore, proclaims that divine law which is common to all: and those people to whom no prophet has been sent and who are unacquainted with His word and with any definite commands and prohibitions of His, and, who during their whole life have not had an opportunity to gain a knowledge of God's word, they too are bound by the law of conscience, and in the next life they will receive reward or punishment in accordance therewith. In some cases it seems as if this inward knowledge of God and of His will which is contained in the human conscience has become corrupted, defiled, feeble and dim. This, however, occurs only through the hardening of men's hearts through persistence in disregarding the voice of conscience and sinning against the light. But

conscience, though for a time it may be silenced, can never be killed. Sooner or later the sinner must hear its voice proclaiming the sin and guilt of which his own heart accuses him. Conscience thus announces God's judgement on men's motives, even more than on their actions, and leaves the sinner without excuse at the bar of His holy and all-knowing Creator and Judge. Human reason may err, human judgement may be misled, but conscience itself cannot. If through error of judgement or rejection of the voice of conscience, through carelessness, or in any other way, men do not attain to the knowledge of God and acquaintance with His holy will, and if some men, nay rather very many people, pay no attention to the divine law proclaimed by their own conscience, but transgress it without fear, then, as we have said, the brightness of that light becomes in them so dim that they retain only a very imperfect knowledge of the distinction between good and evil. Their conscience sometimes almost seems extinct. From the present condition and from the past history of those nations who have no knowledge of the word of God, it is very evident that they have never gained from reason, or even from conscience, that degree of the knowledge of God and of good and evil which is necessary, and that they have not attained any real certainty about these matters. Secondly, since it is evident that sinful man cannot, by means of reason and