special miracle to produce an infinite change, and think himself guiltless if it is not wrought.

But let it be understood that the sinner is simply a candidate for endless existence, and the charge of guilt is easily made out and brought home to the consciences of those who neglect his welfare. Many, indeed, perish under the blaze of the clearest light, and with heaviest condemnation. But it is not so with all. The masses are ignorant of Christ. "The people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." And on the part of most,—of those who "perish without law,"-there may be barely guilt enough to justify their perishing. Our guilt may be greater than theirs, if they are not saved. In a Christian land, men may be sorely tempted by adversity to distrust God's goodness; they may scarcely know the name of Christ, or the work he has done for man. Acts of kindness done to them in His blessed name might lead them to faith and love. And for the heathen, Christians are, to the extent of their light-diffusing power, wholly responsible. To them, deluded and corrupted by many false hopes and gloomy fears, the Gospel will be indeed tidings, -news of glad Without Christ's words of life they despair and die.

things.

We have read of a Caspar Hauser, shut out from the light of day and from all knowledge, until at the age of a young man he was still in pitiable infancy. His sufferings during that night of years were a trifle not to be thought of. But the crime of his exclusion from a proper human existence was called by a new name, the "crime against the life of the soul." At the bar of conscience, there may be a conviction of like guilt, for the careless or wilful failure to save those who are liable to perish. Redeemed already by Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost, they wait for the after-work which He has committed to His people; and the neglect of this work is bloodguiltiness.

We need not dwell here, to say how the Gospel should be brought home to the minds and consciences and hearty acceptance of men. We will only remark, that when a simpler theology shall have done away the necessity of argumentative preaching, to smooth over the Gordian knots of the present system, preaching itself may become a different thing. It will not only be more practical, but it will consist more in Christian practice. The Christian life, -the living epistle, the kind word and deed wrought into gospel by the love of Christ, will assume its due importance. The sermon will still have its place, as an instruction of those who believe. The Gospel will become a common ministration of all who believe; a service of love rendered by Christians wherever scattered, "preaching the word." Such, if we mistake not, was the Church in its infancy; and such it will be in its maturity.

"You talk of hell;" said a heathen in reply to the discourse of a missionary; "hell-it is just the place we wish to go to!"1 What could now be said, to a Hindoo whose own doctrine of metempsychosis had made him too familiar with the thoughts of future suffering? Which was more like a gospel to him—the news of salvation, or the threat of damnation? The case was indeed unusual; but it illustrates what we have said of human nature as often preferring justice to mercy,-wrath to love. The goodness of God-most awful when least disguised—is that which strikes the deepest dread. "They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days."

But the heathen more frequently takes exception to the doctrine of eternal misery, as an encumbrance to the Gospel, making it inferior to his own religion. A priest of Siam once asked a missionary "how long his God tormented bad men in a future state?" and when answered, "for ever"-replied: "Our God torments the worst of men only a thousand years; so we will not have your American God in Siam!" And how poorly prepared is

1 Missionary Herald, Nov. 1849, p. 392.

the missionary, with all the extra-scriptural theodicies of the schools, to meet one such blunt objection to the religion he offers. The story is told of a smart Japarfese, convinced of the folly of his old worship, and hesitating what Christian communion he should join. He could accept neither the Roman, nor the Lutheran, nor the Calvinist faith. With the latter he found fault for its doctrine of predestination, which he found so absurd that he was tempted to hold fast his idolatry more firmly than ever; for he protested that those terrible decrees of absolute predestination and reprobation made God appear as a cruel and inexorable tyrant, who had no greater pleasure than to see His creatures suffer eternally. This idea seemed to him so frightful, and so contrary to the general law of all the religions of the world,—that vice should be presently punished and virtue rewarded, that he was astonished that men endowed with reason could adopt a principle so irrational, and so little conformed to the idea they would have cherished of God as a being infinitely good and merciful. 1 Such is the heathen's objection to the Calvinistic side of the difficulty. But how poor a relief does the missionary afford, when he tells him that eternal suffering is beyond God's power to prevent. And though he should be convinced that Christ can save him, still how heavy and gloomy a cloud of mystery is left if the Gospel reveals no end of evil! The heathen will have a right to echo what the Christian theologian has said,—it is "dark, dark, dark, and he can not disguise it."

But the heathen is concerned with the doctrine of eternal suffering, not for his own sake alone. If he is saved from that, what company shall he find in heaven? and whom shall he not find there? The author of "Hypatia" gives the following narrative as warranted by fact. "Wulf died, as he had lived, a heathen. Placidia, who loved him well, as she loved all righteous and noble souls, had succeeded once in persuading him to accept baptism. Adolf acted as one of the sponsors; and the old warrior was in

1 Description de l'Ile Formosa, Amst. 1705, pp. 281, 282. The Japanese at length joined the Anglican Church, in whose articles the doctrine of eternal suffering does not appear.

the act of stepping into the font, when he turned suddenly to the bishop, and asked him where were the souls of his heathen ancestors? In hell,' replied the worthy prelate. Wulf drew back from the font, and threw his bear skin cloak around him. He would prefer, if Adolf had no objection, to go to his own people.' And so he died unbaptized, and went to his own place." And even now, the missionary can not tell him that he will not find some sad consolation of society, even there.

The Church has yet to learn, in behalf of a dying world, what the Gospel is. Men need not be told that they are sinners, already condemned by the law of God. That they may know well enough; they feel it daily; they doubt it only when condemnation is made to mean what they can not believe. Let the message of pardon and life be once more understood as a plain word, and it may again be said: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, thy God reigneth!" And the Church, whose exotic theology has brought gloom and strife within and scorn from without, may forget her anguish, her reproach, and her desolations. "For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame; for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more."

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CHAPTER XIII.

THE HIGHEST GOOD.

"I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life."

WE have already remarked that the Christian must not only believe that God is just, but must also seek to know how and why He is just in doing thus or thus; otherwise one can not perceive wherein justice consists, or, in many cases, decide what things are just to be done.

For the same reason the Christian must not only believe that the actual system of the world is the best system, (the evil that is in it being no scheme of God's,) but he must desire to understand why it is the best system. He must wish to know wherein the highest good consists, or what is the best gift that God can and does bestow upon his intelligent creatures. Such an answer to the old inquiry respecting the Summum Bonum is implied in the duty which Paul enjoins: to "approve the things that are excellent." As faith ever leads on to reason, and as we admire the holiness, justice, and goodness of God, then, whatsoever things are true- honorable-just-pure-lovely-of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, we must think on these things. As the Book of Job is a continuous theodicy, so that of Ecclesiastes is a continuous inquiry respecting the highest good; of which the ancients, we are told, had two hundred and eighty-eight different theories; and so prone is the mind of man to have some opinion here, that theories are unconsciously offered even by those who pronounce the whole question a vain speculation.

The question is not only the it is specially pertinent for us.

natural sequel of a theodicy, but We have undertaken to oppose