Then let us go “to the law and the testimony;” to the source and fountain of all truth, the inspired Word of God.  Listen to its sad but plain statements.  Job xv. 14:  “What is man that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous?” Ps. li. 5:  “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” John iii. 6:  “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Ephesians ii. 3:  “Among whom also we all ... were by nature”—­i.e. by birth—­“the children of wrath even as others.”  These are a few of the many clear, plain statements of the divine Word.  Nowhere does it teach that children are born pure, righteous and fit for heaven.

The Lutheran church, then, teaches and confesses nothing but the pure truth of God’s Word in the Augsburg Confession, Article II., where it says:  “Also they teach, that after Adam’s fall all men, begotten after the common course of nature, are born with sin,” etc.  Also Smalcald Articles, Part III., Article I:  “Here we must confess, that sin originated from one man Adam, by whose disobedience all were made sinners and subject to death and the devil.  This is called original or capital sin....  This hereditary sin is so deep a corruption of nature that no reason can understand it, but it must be believed from the revelation of Scripture,” etc.  So also the Formula of Concord, Chapter I., “Of Original Sin,” where see a full presentation of our faith and its foundation.  Also Luther’s Explanation of the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed where he says:  “Who—­Christ—­has redeemed me, a poor, lost and condemned creature, secured and delivered me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil.”

This, then is the teaching of our Church, as founded on the Word of God.  That this doctrine is true, beyond the possibility of a doubt, we can learn even from reason.  It will not be disputed that what is in the child will show itself as it develops.  The germs that lie hidden there will unfold and bring forth their proper and natural fruit.  By its fruits we can know even the child.  And what are these fruits?  How long will it be before that helpless and seemingly innocent babe, that slumbers on its mother’s breast, will show symptoms of anger, jealousy, stubbornness and disobedience?  Let that child alone, and, without a teacher, it will learn to lie, deceive, steal, curse, give pain to others, etc.  But, without a teacher, it will not learn to pray, confess wrong, and “fear, love and trust in God above all things.”  Are these the symptoms and evidences of inward purity, or of inbred sin?

Again, that child is subject to sickness, suffering and death.  As soon as it draws its first breath its life is a struggle.  It must contend against the inroads of disease.  Its little body is attacked by dire maladies.  It is weakened by suffering and often racked by pain.  And how frequently the feeble life succumbs and the lately-born infant dies.