---

We hear a great deal said in our day about the doctrine of environment. "Circumstances," we are told, "make the man;" "Life is a modification of matter;" "Thinking is matter in motion;" "The brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile;" "The difference between a good man and a bad man is mainly a difference in molecular organization;" "The affections are of an eminently glandular nature;" "Not as a man thinketh in his heart, but as he eateth, so is he;" "Character is the aggregate of surroundings, the sum total of parents, nurse, place, time, air, light, food, etc." Now this doctrine of environment is in a certain sense entirely true. The mind does not more certainly act on the body than the body on the mind. But the doctrine of environment means, or at least tends to mean, more than this. It tends to teach that sin is not so much a crime as a misfortune, not so much guilt as disease. Not so did the Galilean Master teach. "Hearken to Me, all of you, and understand: Nothing that goeth into a man from without can defile him; but the things that come out of him are what defile a man." Here He is in direct issue with the materialism of the day. For man is something more than matter, or an organized group of molecules. Behind the visible of him there is the invisible. The heart is its own laboratory. Friend, overtaken in a sin, do not judge yourself too charitably. Don't ascribe too much to outward circumstances. Recall the first Adam: he was in a garden, where every outward circumstance was for him; yet he fell. Recall the second Adam: He was in a desert, where every outward circumstance was against Him; yet He remained erect: the Devil failed to conquer Him, not because He was Divine, but because He was sinless. Don't excuse yourself then too much by your "environment." Man is not altogether an imbecile. True, "circumstances do make the man." But they make him only in the sense and degree that he permits them to make him. You will find the most niggardly of men in the mansions of the rich, and the most generous of men in the cabins of the poor; the humblest of Christians in the palace, and the proudest of Pharisees in the cottage; saints in the dungeon, and villains in the Church. It is not so much the outward that tinges the inward as the inward that tinges the outward. It is for the man himself to say whether his own heart shall be a temple or a kennel. The great problem then is this: How shall a man use his "circumstances"? For just what he does with them — just what he does with his strength and time, and skill, and money, and imagination, and reason, and affections, just what the heart does with its opportunities — just this is the test of him. Do these opportunities, after passing through the laboratory of his heart, issue as blessings on the world? Then his heart is pure, Do they issue in moral blights? Then his heart is defiled. Not that these bad issues do of themselves defile the heart; but the heart being itself defiled, and sending forth issues of evil thoughts and deeds, these issues take on the impurities of the source from which they spring, marking its defilement, and aggravating its pollution by the very act of outflowing. These are the unclean things, which, coming out from within, defile the man. Keep thy heart, then, with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life and of death. Friend, are you disheartened by my Master's doctrine? Don't seek to remedy your case by merely altering your circumstances, or reforming your habits. You can't purify a fountain by purifying its streams. Jesus Christ is the most radical of reformers. He does not say, "Change your circumstances, and you will change your character;" but He does say, "Change your heart, and you will be likely to change your circumstances."

(George Dana Boardman, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.

WEB: When he had entered into a house away from the multitude, his disciples asked him about the parable.