A MAP OF LIFE leads the sinner as to the true nature of sin. He imagines himself in a small field, bounded by a fence put there to prevent him from breaking out of the field to sample the rich possibilities of life outside. Here, he says, am I : a being full of the possibilities of development, yet my development is checked at every turn by some absurd law. This view arises from a failure to understand the nature of God’s laws. His laws are no mere whims, like the laws of some stupid despot. They are, on the contrary, the expression by God of His own knowledge of man’s nature and destiny. He knows the kind of being man is, for He made him. And for the same reason He knows what man is made for. God’s laws, then, are a precise statement of how this particular kind of being may avoid destruction and reach his particular goal. The man who makes an engine is not limiting your freedom when he tells you not to run it beyond a certain speed. He knows that if you do you will smash the engine. And if you should plead that your nature demands more speed, that you feel stifled by such slow running — he may very well grow impatient. He knows what speed is right for the engine, for he made it. God’s laws then are best thought of as “maker’s instructions,” directions for the right use of ourselves. His prohibitions warn us of wrong ways of using ourselves or our neighbours. Earlier I used the simile of a razor to illustrate the point that to misuse a thing was to destroy it. Emancipate the razor from its 96