"Excuse me," said the last; "before you go to him, permit me to mention a difficulty which occurred to me while we were speaking."

"By all means; but I do not promise to solve it. Perhaps I on this occasion shall prove the 'wise man,' though I am sure you will not be the fool."

"You recollect," said the other, blushing, "our dismissing those who, while contending, like myself, that such and such doctrines are to be rejected, differ from me in this, that they contend that the said doctrines are not contained in the records of the supposed revelation at all; while others contend that they are. Now, if, while the two parties admit the general evidence which is to substantiate all that is in the records, they arrive by different interpretation at such very different results as to the supposed truth which it supports, are they in any better condition than I? There is the same difference, though arrived at in different ways; and the revelation still remains indeterminate."

"Your objection is ingenious," replied Harrington. "First, however, it is rather hard to ask me to solve a difficulty with which I am in no way concerned, who profess to be altogether sceptical on the subject. Secondly, it certainly does not at all mend your case to prove that there are other men who possibly are as inconsistent as yourself. It makes your theory neither better nor worse. But, thirdly, if I were a Christian, I should not hesitate to contend that there was an obvious and vital difference in the two cases."

"Indeed! If you can show that."

"I should attempt it, at all events I should say that in the latter case the evidence to which the appeal was made did not equally serve to establish truth and falsehood, or, what is still worse, alternately to make falsehood truth, and truth falsehood, to different minds; that it was designed to establish all that was really in the records, though what that all was might give rise to different views, from the prejudices and the ignorance, the different degrees of intelligence and candor, on part of those who interpreted the records; that they made the falsehoods, and not the records or the evidence. I should, therefore, have no difficulty in relation to what, on your theory, is so incomprehensible; namely, that God should have given man so peculiarly constructed a revelation. That men should differ or err in its interpretation is not, I presume, very wonderful, because man, they say, is a creature of prejudice and passion as well as reason."

"But God would still have given the revelation, and yet it is capable, it appears, of being variously interpreted!" said the other.

"Very true, and it is very plain to me that, supposing him to have given any, he could have given no other, unless his omnipotence had been immediately exerted separately upon each individual of the human race, and then in such a way as to supersede all the moral discipline which Christians affirm is involved in its reception. Supposing this discipline (as those who believe in a revelation contend) to be an essential condition, I cannot conceive God himself to give a document which man's ingenuity cannot easily misinterpret. You see man plays the same trick equally well with that faculty of 'spiritual insight,' which some say is the sole source of religious truth, and which you say is the sole arbiter of an external revelation! We cannot find two of you who think alike, or who will give us the same transcript of religious truth. Similarly, we see the same ingenuity manifested by man whenever it is his interest to find in a document a different meaning from that which it apparently carries on its face. Does not the endless controversy, the perpetual litigation of men, respecting the meaning of seemingly the plainest documents, assure us that, if a revelation were really given, the like would be possible with that? It is doubtful with me, therefore, whether God himself could give a revelation, such that men could not misrepresent and pervert it; that is, as long as they were rational creatures," he continued bitterly. "But the mischief of your theory is, that it charges the inevitable result of man's perverseness or ignorance on God, and the revelation he has been supposed to construct, and that is to me an absurdity."

"I do not see that these answers are satisfactory," said the other.

"I must leave you to judge of that," said Harrington, "or to contest it with my uncle here. I am keeping my next friend waiting, who, I can see, is impatient to run a course in favor of his view of revelation. He tells us, too, that a divine revelation, as conveyed in the New Testament, is to be admitted, but he cannot away with the notion that its certainty extends to any thing more than to what he calls the 'religious element.' Is not that your notion?"

"It is."

"You think, for example, that it is possible that the Apostles and writers of the New Testament (in fact, whoever had the charge of recording and transmitting to posterity the doctrines of this revelation) were left liable, just as any other men, to all sorts of errors, geographical, chronological, logical, historical, political, moral—"

"No, no, not moral," said the other; "I did not say moral: their morality is implied in their theology."

"O, very well! we shall better see that presently; only I have to remind you, for the glory of your Rationalism, that other Rationalists make the errors extend even to the 'moral element'; but it is all one to me. You say, that, as far as regards every thing else, it is very possible that these 'inspired' men might err to any amount?"

"Yes; I believe it."

"You have, doubtless, some reason for saying that they were made infallible in religion and morality, but liable to all sorts of errors on other subjects?"

"Nothing but this; that, if to give us 'spiritual truth' (as is supposed) was their proper function (and we cannot but suppose that it was), they must have been invested (we must suppose) with all the necessary qualities for this end, since I am supposing that even miracles were thought worth working in order to confirm their doctrine."

"You use the word suppose rather frequently, my friend; however, I will not quarrel with you for that; only you ought not to be surprised if, adopting your last supposition,—that, when miracles and inspiration have been supposed to be vouchsafed to authenticate a particular revelation, all such endowments, at least, will be granted as shall secure that object from defeat,—other Christians further suppose that the documents in which the revelation was to be consigned to all future ages would not be disfigured (and in many respects obscured) by the liability of their authors to all sorts of errors on an infinity of points, hopelessly entangled, as we shall soon see, with this one! that when heaven was at the trouble to embark its cargo of diamonds and pearls for this world, it would not send them in a vessel with a great hole in the bottom! If the Apostles were plenarily inspired with regard to this one subject, men will think it strange, perhaps, that divine aid should not have gone a little further, and since the destined revelation was to be recorded or rather imbedded, in history, illustrated by imagination, enforced by argument, and expressed in human language,—its authors should have been left liable to destroy the substance by egregious and perpetual blunders as to the form; to run the chance of knocking out the brains of the unfortunate revelation by upsetting the vehicle in which it was to be conveyed!"

"But, then, these supposed endowments are purely a supposition on the part of Christians in general."

"Just as yours, we may say, of an indefectible wisdom on one point is a supposition on your part. I think in that respect that you are both well matched. But I freely confess that I think their supposition more plausible than yours; and, if I were an advocate for Christianity, I should certainly rather suppose with them than suppose with you; that is, I should think it more credible, if God interposed with such stupendous instruments as miracles, inspiration, and prophecy at all, he would endow the men thus favored (not with all knowledge, indeed, but) with whatever was necessary to prevent their encountering a certainty of vitiating their testimony."

"But how would their testimony be liable to be vitiated? I am supposing them to be absolutely free from error as regards the religious clement, which they deliver pure."

'We shall see in a minute whether their testimony was liable to be vitiated or not, and whether the separation for which you contend be conceivable, or even possible. I fear that you have no winnowing-fan which will separate the chaff from the wheat."

"To me, nothing seems more easy than the supposition I have made."

"Few things are more easy than to make suppositions; but let us see. I am sure you will answer as fairly as I shall ask questions. To do otherwise would be to separate the 'moral element' from the 'logical,' whatever the New Testament writers may have done. You believe, you say, in the resurrection of Christ?"

"I do."

"As a fact or doctrine?"

"Both as a fact and doctrine."

"For it is both, if true," said Harrington; "and so, I apprehend, it will be found with the other doctrines of Christianity. Whether, in your particular latitude of Rationalism, you believe many or few of them, still, if true at all (which we at present take for granted), they are both facts and doctrines, from the Incarnation to the Resurrection. But to confine ourselves to one,—that of the Resurrection,—for one will answer my purpose as well as a thousand; —that, you say, is a fact,—a fact of history?"

"It is."

"It is, then, conveyed to us as such?"

"Certainly."

"Were the recorders of that fact liable to error in conveying it to us? In other words, might they so blunder in conveying that fact (as we know the unaided historian may, and often does) as to leave us in doubt whether it ever took place or not?"

"Well," said the youth, "and you know they have exhibited it in such a way as to suggest many apparent discrepancies, and those very difficult to be reconciled."

"I am aware of it, and for that very reason selected this particular fact. In my judgment, there are no passages which more exercise the ingenuity of the harmonists than those which record the transactions connected with the resurrection. But still, in spite of them all, I presume that you do not think that those discrepancies really call the fact in question, else you would not continue to believe it. I should then suddenly find myself arguing with a very different person."

"Certainly, you are quite right. I agree that the substantial facts are as the writers have delivered them; although they may, from their liability to error, have delivered some of the details erroneously."

"But might this liability to error have led them a little further in their discrepancies, so as to involve the fact itself in just doubt, and so of other great facts which constitute the doctrines as well as the facts of Scripture?"

"Of course, I think it might, since I suppose them unaided by any supernatural wisdom in this respect."

"The answer is honest. I thought, perhaps, you would have answered differently, in which case you would have given me the trouble of pursuing the argument one step further. It appears, then, that, though inspired to give mankind a true statement of doctrines, yet that, when these doctrines assume the form of facts (which, unhappily, they do perpetually), this hazardous liability to error as historians may counteract their inspiration, and they may give them in such a form as to throw upon them all manner of doubts and suspicions; possibly they have done so, for aught you can tell.—But, again, you also affirm that these so-called inspired men were liable to make all sorts of logical blunders, just as the uninspired."

"Certainly; and I must confess I think the logic of the Apostle Paul, in particular, often exceedingly absurd."

"Very fair and candid. For example, I dare say that you do not think much of his arguments or inferences from certain doctrines; or his proofs of those doctrines from the Old Testament or—"

"They are not, indeed, worth much in my estimation."

"Candid again; but then it is plain, first, that you will have to distinguish between the pure doctrines which Paul derived from a celestial source, and his erroneous proofs or inferences, which are delivered in precisely the same manner and with the same assumption of authority. And this, I think, would be an insuperable task; at least, it seems so, for you Rationalists decide this matter very differently. When any of you favor me with your sketches of the true heaven-descended Pauline theology, I find them widely different from each other. Your 'religious element' is of the most variable volume. Some of you include nearly the whole creed of ordinary orthodoxy; others, fifty or even eighty per cent. less, both in bulk and weight."

"Perhaps so."

"Perhaps so! But then, what becomes of your principle, that you may separate the pure 'religion element,' as conveyed to the minds of the sacred writers by direct illumination, from the errors of vicious logic which have been permitted to mingle with it? To me it appears any thing but easy to separate the functions of a revealer of truly inspired truth from the vitiating influences of a fallacious logic. The 'heavenly vision,' however 'obedient' a Paul may be to it, will be but obscurely represented, and suffer egregiously from that distorted image which the ill-constructed mirror will convey to us. —But once more, I think you do not hold Paul's rhetoric to be always of the first excellence?"

"Certainly not; I think his representations are often as faulty as his logic is vicious; especially when, under the influence of his Jewish education, he throws old Gamaliel's mantle over his shoulders, and dotes about 'allegories' founded on the Old Testament."

"Fair and candid once more; but then, I suppose you will admit that the divine truths which he was, nevertheless, commissioned to teach mankind, will, like any other truths, be much affected by the mode in which they are represented to the imagination; will become brighter or more obscure, more animated or more feeble, and even more just or distorted, as this task is wisely and judiciously, or preposterously performed?"

"No doubt."

"Then it appears, I think, that, if there were nothing to control the Apostle Paul's manner of exhibiting divine verities, even in relation only to the imagination, there might be all the difference between sober truth and fanatical perversions of it. I might, in the same manner, proceed to show that the feelings, uncontrolled by a superior influence, would be also likely to give distortion or exaggeration to the doctrines. But it is enough. It appears very plain, that, according to your hypothesis, even though the Apostles were commissioned to teach by supernatural illumination certain truths, yet that, being liable to be infected with all the faults of false history, bad logic, vicious rhetoric, fanatical feeling, these divine truths might, possibly, be most falsely presented to us. We have, really, no guaranty but your gratuitous 'supposition' that they have been taught at all. We have no criterion for separating what is thus divine from what is merely human. I fear, therefore, your distinction will not hold. The stream, whatever the crystal purity of its fountain, could not fail to be horribly impure by the time it had flowed through such foul conduits."

"In short," continued Harrington, with a bitter smile at the same time, "there are but three consistent characters in the world; the Bible Christian, and the genuine Atheist,—or the absolute Sceptic."

"No,—no,—no," exclaimed the whole trio at once; "and you yourself must be true to your principles, and therefore sceptical as to this."

"It is" he replied, "one of the very few things which I am not sceptical about. At all events, right or wrong, I am, as usual, willing to give you my reasons for my belief."

"Rather say your doubts," said Fellowes.

"Well, for my doubts, then. You see, my friends, the matter is as follows. The Christian speaks on this wise:—

"'I find, in reference to Christianity as in references to Theism, what appears to me an immense preponderance of evidence of various kinds in favor of its truth; but both alike I find involved in many difficulties which I acknowledge to be insurmountable, and in many mysteries which I cannot fathom. I believe the conclusions in spite of them. As to the revelation, I see some of its discrepancies are the effect of transcription and corruption; others are the result of omissions of one or more of the writers, which, if supplied, would show that they are apparent only; of others, I can suggest no explanations at all; and, over and above these, I see difficulties of doctrine which I can no more profess to solve than I can the parallel perplexities in Nature and Providence, and especially those involved in the permitted phenomenon of an infinity of physical and moral evil. As to these difficulties, I simply submit to them, because I think the rejection of the evidence for the truths which they embarrass would involve me in a much greater difficulty. With regard to many of the difficulties, in both cases, I set that the progress of knowledge and science is continually tending to dissipate some, and to diminish, if not remove, the weight of others: I see that a dawning light now glimmers on many portions of the void where continuous darkness once reigned; though that very light has also a tendency to disclose other difficulties; for, as the sphere of knowledge increases, the outline of darkness beyond also increases, and increases even in a greater ratio. But I also find, I frankly admit, that on many of my difficulties, and especially that connected with the origin of evil, and other precisely analogous difficulties of Scripture, no light whatever is cast: to the solution of them, man has not made the slightest conceivable approximation. These things I submit to, as an exercise of my faith and a test of my docility, and that is all I have to say about them; you will not alter my views by dwelling on them, for your sense of them cannot be stronger than mine.' Thus speaks the Christian; and the Atheist and the Sceptic occupy ground as consistent. They say, 'We agree with you Christians, that the Bible contains no greater difficulties than those involved in the inscrutable "constitution and course of nature"; but on the very principles on which the Rationalist, or Spiritualist, or Deist, or whatever he pleases to call himself, rejects the divine origin of the former, we are compelled to go a few steps farther, and deny—or doubt the divine origin of the latter. It is true that the Bible presents no greater difficulties than the external universe and its administration; (it cannot involve greater;) but if those difficulties are sufficient to justify the denial or doubt of the divine authorship of the one, they are sufficient to justify denial or doubt about the divine origin of the other.'—But as to you, what consistent position can you take, so long as you affirm and deny so capriciously? Who 'strain at the gnats' of the Bible, and 'swallow the camels' of your Natural Religion? You ought, on the principle on which you reject so much of the Bible,—namely, that it does not harmonize with the deductions of your intellect, the instincts of conscience, the intuitions of the 'spiritual faculty,' and Heaven knows what,—to become Manichaeans at the least."

"But these very arguments," said one of the youths, "are just the old-fashioned arguments of BUTLER, Which it is surely droll of all things to find a sceptic making use of."

"I admit they are his, my friend; but not that there is any inconsistency in my employing them. I affirm that Butler is quite right in his premises, though I may reject the conclusion to which he would bring me. He leaves two alternatives, and only two, in my judgment, open; leaves two parties untouched; one is the Christian, and the other is the Atheist or the Sceptic, which-ever you please; but I am profoundly convinced he does not leave a consistent footing for any thing between. His fire does not injure the Christian, for-comes out of his own camp; nor me, for it falls short of my lines; but for you, who have pitched your tent between, take heed to yourselves. He proves clearly enough, that the very difficulties for which you reject Christianity exist equally, sometimes to a still amount, in the domain of nature."

"Oh!" said the youngest, "we do not think that Butler's argument is sound."

"Then," said Harrington, "the sooner you refute it the better. All you have to do is, just to show that this world does not exhibit the inequalities, the miseries,—the apparent caprice in its administration, —the involuntary ignorance,—the enormous wrongs,—the wide-spread sorrows and death,—it does. You will do greater service to the Deist than the whole of the have ever done him yet. I am convinced that Butler is not to be refuted."

"But do you not recollect what no less a man than Pitt said,—'Analogy is an argument so easily retorted!'" replied the same youth.

"Then you will have the less difficulty in retorting it," said Harrington, coolly. "Pitt's observation only shows that he had forgotten the true object of the work, or never understood it. For the purposes of refutation, it does not follow that an analogy may be easily retorted; it may be, and often is, irresistible. It is when employed to establish a truth, not to expose an error, that it is often feeble. If Butler had attempted to prove that the inhabitants of Jupiter must be miserable, nothing could have been more ridiculous than to adduce the analogy of our planet. But if he merely wished to show that it did not follow that that beautiful orb, being created by infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, must be an abode of happiness, (just the Rationalist style of reasoning,) it would be quite sufficient to introduce the speculator to this ill-starred planet of ours."

There are few who will not acquiesce in this remark of Harrington's, however they may lament the alternative he seemed disposed to take. Assuredly, for the specific object in view, no book written by man was ever more conclusive than that of Butler. For if you can show to an unbeliever in Christianity, who is yet (as most are) a Theists, that any objection derived from its apparent repugnance to wisdom or goodness applies equally to the "constitution and course of nature," you do fairly compel him (as long as he remains a Theist) to admit that that objection ought not to have weight with him. He has indeed an alternative; that of Atheism or Scepticism; but it is clear he must give up either his argument or his—Theism. It may be called, indeed, an argument ad hominem; but as almost every unbeliever in Christianity is a man of the above stamp, it is of wide application. This is the fair issue to which Butler brings the argument; and the conclusiveness of his logic has been shown in this, that, however easily "analogies" may be "retorted," the parties affected by it have never answered it. I was amused with the criticism with which Harrington wound up. "Butler," said he, "wrote but little; but when reading him, I have often thought of Walter Scott's wolf-dog Maida, who seldom was tempted to join in the bark of his lesser canine associates. 'He seldom opens his mouth,' said his master; 'but when he does, he shakes the Eildon Hills. Maida is like the great gun at Constantinople,—it takes a long time to load it; but when it does go off, it goes off for something!'" _

Aug. 1. I this day put into Mr. Fellowes's hands the brief notes on the three questions on which he had solicited my opinion. They were as follows:—

I. Mr. Newman says that it is an idle boast that the elevation of woman is in any high degree attributable to the Gospel. "In point of fact," says he, "Christian doctrine, as propounded by Paul, is not at all so honorable to woman as that which German soundness of heart has established. With Paul the sole reason for marriage is that a man may without sin vent his sensual desires."

If, indeed, there were no other passage in the New Testament than that to which Mr. Newman refers, there might be something to be said for him. But it is only one of many, and the question really at issue is consequently blinked, namely, what is the aspect of the entire New Testament institute upon the relations of woman? It is true, indeed, that the reason for marriage which Mr. Newman contends is the only thing Paul thought about, is very properly urged; for from the constitution of human nature, (as every comprehensive philosopher and legislator would admits) as well as from the horrible condition of things where marriage is neglected, prominence is very justly given to the preservation of chastity as one of the primary objects of the institution. But the question as between Mr. Newman and Christianity is this: Is this the only aspect under which the relations of man and woman are represented to us? That every thing is not said in one passage is true enough. From the desultory manner in which the ethics as well as doctrines of the New Testament are expounded to us, and especially from the casual form which they assume in the Apostolic Epistles, where the particular circumstances of the parties addressed naturally suggested the degree of prominence given to each topic, we must fairly examine the whole volume in order to comprehend the spirit of the whole, and not take up a solitary passage as though it were the only one. Now, if we examine other passages, we cannot fail to see that the New Testament consecrates married life by enjoining the utmost purity, devotion, and tenderness of affection. Look at only one or two of the passages in which the New Testament enjoins the reciprocal duties of husbands and wives; what sort of model it proposes for their love. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it ..... Let every one in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies, .... giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life."

Is this like condemning women to be "elegant toys and voluptuous appendages"?

Admitting, for the sake of argument, that the whole of Christianity is a delusion; that Christ never lived, and therefore never died; that he is a more palpable myth than even Dr. Strauss contends for; still it is impossible not to see that the writers of the New Testament represent his love for man as the ideal of pure, disinterested, self-sacrificing affection; this appears whether we listen to the words which the Evangelists have put into his mouth, or those in which they have spoken of him. "Greater love hath non man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends." Now, let there be as much or as little historic truth in such statements, in the doings and sufferings of Christ on behalf of humanity, as you will, the conclusion is irresistible that his conduct (real or imaginary) is set forth as the exhibition of unequalled patience, gentleness, meekness, and forbearance; of a love anxious to purchase, at the dearest cost, the purest and highest happiness of its objects. Now such is the pattern of affection which the Apostles commend to the imitation of "husbands and wives" in their conduct towards one another. Such is to be the lofty standard which their love is to emulate. Is it possible to go further? Does not the fantastical observance, or rather the absolute idolatry of women cherished by chivalry,—itself, however, rooted in the influences of a corrupt Christianity,—look like a caricature beside the picture? And who are the "poets of Germanic culture" who have risen to an equal ideal of the reciprocal duties and sentiments of wedded life? I must contend that so beautiful a picture of a real equality between man and woman,—founded on the love of the common Lord of both,—such a picture of woman's true elevation, was never realized in the ancient world, nor would have been to this day had not Christianity been promulgated; nor is now, except where Christianity is known, though, alas! not always where it is. But if you think otherwise, beg Mr. Newman to give you a catena of passages from the "poets of Germanic culture" (he has not adduced a syllable in proof); and recollect it ought to be from Germanic poets who lived before the Germans were Christians! Or perhaps you would wish to seek the Germanic "sentiment" towards woman pure in its source, as given in the certainly not unfavorable estimate of Tacitus. In their respect for woman and the stress they laid on chastity, the ancient Germans transcended without doubt many savages. Still, few readers will suppose there was much reason to boast of the elevation of women, or the presence of much refined "sentiment" between the sexes! As long as women do all the drudgery of house and field work, while their lazy husbands drink and gamble; as long as they are liable (and their children too) to be sold or put on the hazard of a cast of the dice; as long as they are themselves ferocious enough to go out to battle with their husbands; I presume you will think the "Germanic culture" very far short of the "culture" likely to be produced by the New Testament! Well says Gibbon, "Heroines of such a cast may claim admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely nor very susceptible of love."

II. Mr. Newman says, that undue credit has been claimed for Christianity as the foe and extirpator of slavery. He says that, at this day, the "New Testament is the argumentative stronghold of those who are trying to keep up the accursed system." Would it not have been candid to add, that the New Testament has ever been also the stronghold of those who oppose it, as well in this country as in America? It is on the express ground to its supposed inconsistency with the maxims and spirit of Christianity, that the great mass of Abolitionists hate and loathe it. A public clamor against it was never raised in the days of ancient slavery, nor is now in any country where Christianity is unknown. The opposition to it in our own country was a religious one; that we know full well; and so is the opposition of the American Abolitionists at the present day. If selfish cupidity, on the one hand, appeals to the New Testament for its continuance, so does philanthropy, on the other, for its abolition; and though in my judgment the inferences of the latter are far more reasonable, the mere fact that both parties appeal to the book shows that the New Testament neither sanctions it—rather the contrary by implication—nor expressly denounces it;—Mr. Newman doubtless can do it safely. This very moderation of language, however, has to many minds, and those of no mean capacity, (the late Dr. Chalmers for example,) been regarded as an indication of the wisdom which has presided over the construction of the New Testament; it was not only a tone peremptorily demanded by the necessary conditions of publishing Christianity at all, but was best adapted,—nay, alone adapted,—in the actual condition of the world in relation to slavery, to make any salutary impression.

Admitting that the great, the primary end of the Gospel was spiritual; that it was the object of the Apostles to obtain for it a dispassionate hearing among all nations; and that, however they might hope indirectly to affect the temporal prosperity and political welfare of mankind, all good of this kind was in their view subordinate to that spiritual amelioration, which, if affected, would necessarily involve all inferior social and political improvements;—I say, admitting this, it is really difficult to imagine any other course open to a wise choice than that which was actually adopted. I contend, that in not passionately denouncing slavery, and in contenting themselves with quietly depositing those principles and sentiments which, while achieving objects infinitely more important, would infallibly abolish it, the Apostles took the wisest course, even with relation to this latter object,—though it was doubtless not the course into which a blind fanaticism would have plunged. To enter upon an open crusade against slavery in that age would have been to render the preaching of the Gospel a simple impossibility, and to convert a professedly moral and spiritual institute into an engine of political agitation; it would have afforded the indignant governments of the world—quite prompt enough to charge it with seditious tendencies—a plausible pretext for its suppression. Both the primary and the secondary objects would have been sacrificed; and the chains of slavery riveted, not relaxed. Slavery, in that age, we must recollect, was interwoven with the entire fabric of society in almost all nations. To denounce it would have been a provocation, nay, a challenge, to a servile war in every country to which the zeal of the Christian emissaries might carry the Gospel. Contenting themselves, therefore, with the enunciation of those principles which, where they are truly embraced, are inconsistent with the permanent existence of slavery, and, if triumphant, insure its downfall, the Apostles pursued that which was their great object; and for those of an inferior order, patiently waited for the time when the seed they had sown broadcast in the earth should yield its harvest.

And surely the event has justified their sagacity. For to what, after all, have just notions on this most important subject been owing, except to this said Christianity? Though it is true that, owing to the imperfect exemplification of its principles by men who profess it, it has not yet done its work, it is doing it; though some Christian nations—more shame for them—have slaves, none but Christian nations are without them. Not only is the sincere admission of the maxims and principles of the New Testament inconsistent with the permanent existence of slavery, but the history of Christianity affords perpetual illustrations of its tendency to destroy it. Even during the Dark Ages, even in its most corrupted form, Christianity wrought for the practical extinction of serfdom. Mr. Newman says that it was Christians, not men, that the church sought to enfranchise; it little matters; she sought to abolish all villanage. He says that even Mahometans do not like to enslave Mahometans; I ask, can he find immense bodies of Mahometans who contend that it is Contrary to the spirit, tendencies, and maxims, if not precise letter, of their religion, to enslave any body? For it was such a principle which expressly called forth the abhorrence and condemnation of slavery in our own age and nation. It cannot be denied that the movement by which this accursed system was, after so long a struggle, exterminated amongst us, was an eminently religious one, as regards its main supporters, the ground they took, and the sacrifices they made.

"But Christian nations have defended and practised slavery!" you will say.

They have; and Christian nations have often practised the vices which the "Book" expressly condemns,—just as all nations have practised many things which their codes of morals or laws condemn. The question is whether in the one case the Book, or in the other case the codes, approve them; not, I presume, whether man is a very inconsistent animal. But no system is made answerable for the violations of its spirit—except Christianity.

Mr. Newman says that slaveholders make the "New Testament the stronghold of the accursed system." It had been more to the purpose if he had pointed out a passage or two which recommend it. He knows that it is simply because it does not (for reasons already stated) denounce it, that they say it approves it. Are you satisfied with this reasoning? Then try it on another case,—for despotism is exactly parallel. The New Testament does not expressly denounce that, and for the same reasons; and the arguments for passive obedience have been with equal plausibility drawn from its pages. Will the Transatlantic republicans approve despotism on the same authority? —Despotism has wrought at least as much misery to mankind as slavery, and probably much more. Was it a duty of the Apostles, instead of laying down principles which, though having another object, would infallibly undermine it, to denounce despotism everywhere, and invite all people to an insurrection against their rulers? If they had, the spiritual objects of the Gospel would have been easily understood, and very properly treated. Let me apply the argumentum ad hominem. Mr. Newman has favored the world with his views of religious truth, and the "spiritual" weapons by which its "champion" is to make it victorious over mankind; he has also recorded his hatred of slavery and despotism, where such magnanimity is perfectly safe, and perfectly superfluous. Let me now suppose you, not only partly, but wholly of his mind, and animated (if "spiritualism" will ever prompt men to do any thing, except, as Harrington says, to write books against book-revelation), —let me suppose you animated to go as missionary to the East to preach this spiritual system: would you, in addition to all the rest, publicly denounce the social and political evils under which the nations groan? If so, your spiritual projects would soon be perfectly understood, and summarily dealt with. It is in vain to say that, if commissioned by Heaven, and endowed with power of working miracles, you would do so; for you cannot tell under what limitations your commission would be given; it is pretty certain that it would leave you to work a moral and spiritual system by moral and spiritual means, and not allow you to turn the world upside down, nor mendaciously tell it that you came only to "preach peace," while every syllable you uttered would be an incentive to sedition.

III. The last point on which you ask a few remarks is in relation to the early spread of Christianity. Mr. Newman makes easy work of this great problem. He says, "Before Constantine, Christians were but a small fraction of the empire ..... In fact, it was the Christian soldiers in Constanline's army who conquered the empire for Christianity." (Phases, p. 162.)

In the first place, supposing the facts just as stated.—namely, that it was the Christian soldiers of Constantine who conquered the empire for Christianity,—who was it that conquered the army for Christianity? When I find Mahometanism the prevalent religion through the English regiments, I shall shrewdly suspect that the conquest of England for Mahometanism will have been made an easy task, by its having already made equal progress amongst the people generally!

I suppose it will not be denied that the soldiers, by whose aid Constantine achieved this great victory, were themselves professedly converts to Christianity; and Christianity as it had existed in the times of the recent persecutions was not likely to allure men to the profession of arms. I think, therefore, we may fairly assume, that, if the imperial armies were to any considerable extent—and it must have been ex hypothesi to a prevailing extent—composed of Christians, Christianity had made at least equal progress in the ranks of civil life. The one may be taken as the measure of the other; though we might fairly suppose, both from the principles and habits of the Christians, that they would be found in civil life in a larger ratio. The camp was not precisely the place for them; the Gospel might find them there, it rarely sent them. So that the question returns, How came it to pass that the bulk of the armies which "conquered the empire for Christianity" came to be Christians,—at least in name and profession?

"Ah!" you will say, "in name,—but they were strange Christians who became soldiers." Very true; and it makes my argument the stronger. Mere professors of a religious system only follow in the wake of its triumphs. When those who do not care much for a system profess and embrace it, depend upon it, it has largely triumphed. To suppose, therefore, that Constantine conquered the empire for Christianity, while we admit that the army was already Christian, is very like getting rid of the objection in the way the Irishman proposed to get rid of some superfluous cart-loads of earth. "Let us dig a hole," said he, "and put it in." It is much the same here.

Constantine became a convert, perhaps from conviction, but certainly rather late. Supposing him a political convert, as many have done, it could only be because he saw that Christianity had done its work to such an extent as to render it more probable that it would assist him than that he could assist it. This induced him to take it under the wing of his patronage. And on such a theory, what but such a conviction could have justified him in the attempt for a moment? How could he be fool enough to add to the difficulties of his position—a candidate for empire—the stupendous difficulty of forcing upon his unwilling or indifferent subjects a religion which by supposition they were any thing but prepared to receive? If the prospects of Christianity had not already decided the question for him, so far from receiving credit for political sagacity, as he ever has done, he would deserve rather to be considered an absolute idiot!

Again; is it not plain from history in general, and must we not infer it from the nature of the case a priori, that Christianity must in some fashion have conquered its millions before Constantine or any other man was likely to attempt to conquer the empire for Christianity, or to succeed in so doing if he had? Is there an instance on record of a people suddenly, at a moment's notice, changing its religion, or rather—for this is the true representation—of many different nations changing their many different religions at the simple command of their sovereign, and he too an upstart? In two cases, and in only two, it may be done; first, by an unsparing use of the sword, the brief, simple alternative of Mahomet, Death or the Koran; the other, when the new form of belief has converted the bulk or a large portion of the nation; of which, in this case, the conversion of the army is a tolerably significant indication.

But again; if it be said that the people, or rather the many different nations, abandoned their religions out of complaisance to their sovereign, I answer, Why do we not see the same thing repeated when Julian wished to reverse the experiment? They were not so pliant then; then was it seen very dearly that the people were, as in every other case, unwilling, as regards their religion, to be mere puppets in the hands of their governors. He was animated by at least as strong a hatred of Christianity as Constantine by a love of it. Yet we see all the way through, that there was not a chance of success for him.

"But there were some persecutions," you will say, "by Constantine." True, but they were so trifling compared with what would have been required had the conversion of an unbelieving and refractory empire depended on such means, that few who read the history of religious revolutions will believe that they were the cause of the change. Every thing shows that a vast preceding moral revolution in the empire is the only sufficient explanation of so sudden an event. Gibbon himself admits Constantine's tolerant disposition.

"But," it may be said, "the old heathenism was worn out and effete; no one thought it worth his while to stand up in its defence."

I answer, first, it seems to have been sufficiently loved, or at least Christianity was sufficiently hated, to insure frequent and sanguinary persecutions of the latter, almost up to the eve of Constantine's accession. Secondly, you are to consider that, though in the schools of philosophers, in the Epicurean or sceptical atmosphere of the luxurious capital and other great cities, there was unquestionably a numerous party to whom the old superstition was a laughing-stock, there were vast multitudes to whom it was still, in its various forms, a thing of power. You are to recollect that the Roman empire was made up of many nations, each with a different mode of religion, and to suppose that these different religions had ceased to exercise the usual influence on vast multitudes of the people would be mere delusion. If they were surrendered at last so easily, it could only be because a great party—antagonistic to each—had been silently forming in each nation, and undermining the power of the popular superstitions. But, thirdly, if the representation were true, to what can so singular a phenomenon—this simultaneous decay of different religions, this epidemic pestilence amongst the gods of the Pantheon —be ascribed, but to the previous influence of Christianity, and its extensive conquests? And, fourthly, supposing this not the case, and yet that the indifference in question existed, this indifference to the old systems of religion would not presuppose equal indifference to new, or induce the people to embrace them at the mere bidding of their new master. If this were so, we ought to see the same phenomenon repeated in the case of Julian. If, in their presumed indifference to the old and the new, they listened to Constantine when he commanded them to become Christians, why did not they manifest an equally compliant temper when the Apostate enjoined them to become heathens, and like Constantine, gave them both precept and example?

But look at the historic evidence on the subject long before the establishment of Christianity. Is it possible for any candid person to read the Epistle of Pliny to Trajan, and not see in that alone, after making every deduction for any supposed bias under which the letter may have been written (though, in fact, it is difficult to suppose any bias that would not rather lead the writer to diminish the number of the Christians than to exaggerate it),—is it possible, I say, to read that singular state paper, and not feel that the new religion had made prodigious progress in that remote province? and that, a fortiori, if in Bithynia it had conquered its thousands of proselytes, in other and more favored provinces it must have gained its tens of thousands? To me the letter of Pliny speaks volumes; and if so much could be said at so early a period as A. D. 107, what was the state of things two centuries later?

Precisely the same conclusion must be arrived at if we consult the uniform tone of the Christian apologists, from Justin Martyr to Minucius Felix. Making here, again, what deductions you please for the fervid eloquence and rhetorical exaggerations of such a man as Tertullian, it is too much to suppose even his "African" impetuosity would have ventured, not merely on the virulent invective, the bold taunts, with which he everywhere assails the popular superstitions, but on such strong assertions of the triumphant progress of the upstart religion, unless there had been obvious approximation to truth in his statements. "We were but of yesterday," says he, "and we have filled your cities, islands, towns, and assemblies; the camp, the senate, the palace, and the forum swarm with converts to Christianity." Apologist for Christianity! Unless these words had been enforced by very much of truth, he would have made Christianity simply ridiculous; and Christians would have been necessitated to apologize for their mad apologist.

The same conclusion equally follows from the consideration of those very corruptions of Christianity, which no candid student of ecclesiastical history will be slow to admit had already infected it, many years before Constantine ventured to aid it by his equivocal patronage. It was obviously its triumphant progress,—its attraction to itself of much wealth,—the accession, to a considerable extent, of fashion, rank, and power,—that chiefly caused those corruptions. So long as the Christian Church was poor and despised, such scenes as often attended the election of bishops in the great cities of the empire would be quite impossible.

Under such circumstances the argument of Mr. Newman—judiciously compressed into a few sentences—appears to me even ludicrous. How different the course which Gibbon pursues! What a pity that the great historian did not perceive that this statement would have led him equally well to his desired end; that so brief a demonstration would suffice to account for that unmanageable phenomenon, the rapid progress and ultimate triumph of Christianity! He, on the contrary, seems to have read history with very different eyes; and yet I suppose no man will question either his learning or his sagacity. He finds himself obliged to admit the conspicuous advance which the Gospel had made before Constantine's accession, and employs every nerve to invent sufficient natural causes to account for it. What a facile task would he have had of it, if he had but bethought him that Christianity, instead of having been to an enormous extent successful was, in fact, waiting, in comparative failure, the triumphant aid of a military conqueror! He might then have dispensed with the celebrated chapter, and substituted for it the two pregnant sentences by which Mr. Newmen has, in effect, declared it superfluous. _

August 7. Three days ago (the evening before my return home) I managed to prevail upon myself to have a close and formal discussion with Harrington on the subject of his scepticism. We had a regular fight, which lasted till midnight, and beyond. A good deal of it was (in a double sense, perhaps) a nuktomachia. As I had no one to jot down short-hand notes of our controversy,—perhaps it is as well for me and for truth that there was none,—it is impossible that I should do more than give you a succinct summary of its course. But its principal topics are too indelibly impressed on my memory to leave me in doubt about general accuracy.

I hardly know what led to it; I believe, however, it was an observation he made on the different fates of metaphysical and physical science,—the last all progress, and the first perpetual uncertainty. He had been reading a remark of some philosopher who attributed this difference to the more substantial incentives offered to the cultivation of the physical sciences. "So that," said he, "they are, it seems, what our German friends would call 'Brodwissenschaften'! Not the brain, as some idly suppose, but the stomach, is the true organon of discovery, and if the metaphysician could but be punctually assured of his dinner (which has not always been the case), or at all events of a fortune, we should soon have the true theories of the Sublime and Beautiful,—of Ethics,—of the Infinite,—of the Absolute,—of Mind and Matter,—of Liberty and Necessity; whereas I think we should only have a multiplication of doubtful theories."

He remarked that he doubted the truth of the hypothesis in both its parts; that not the want of adequate motives, but the intrinsic difficulty of the subjects, had kept metaphysics back (on what subjects had men expended more gigantic toil?); nor, on the other hand, was it necessity that chiefly impelled man to cultivate physical science; it was the desire of knowledge,—or rather, he added, the love of truth; for what else was his admitted curiosity, in the last resort, unless man is equally curious about falsehood and truth; "that is," said he, laughing, "as curious after ignorance as after knowledge! No," he continued, "the sciences are made arts for utilitarian purposes; but the sciences themselves have a very different origin. For my own part, I would as soon believe that Sir Isaac Newton excogitated his system of the universe in hopes of being made one day Master of the Mint." I assented, and, smiling, told him I was glad to find him admit that there was in man a love of knowledge, identical with the love of truth. He said he admitted the appetite, but denied that there was always an adequate supply of food. He admitted that in physical science man seemed capable of unlimited progress; but it seemed doubtful whether this was the case in other directions. "What was there inconsistent with scepticism in that?" he asked.

I answered, that it was not for me to say at what point of the scale a man might become an orthodox doubter; but I was, at all events, glad that he had not gone all the lengths which some had gone, or professed to have gone; who, if they had not reached that climax of Pyrrhonism, to doubt even if they doubt, yet had declared the attainment of all truth impossible. I then bantered him a little on the advantages of "absolute scepticism"; told him I wondered that he should throw them away; and reminded him of the success with which the sceptic might train on his adversary into the "bosky depths" of German metaphysics,—the theories of Schelling, Fichte, Hegel. "If truth be in any of those dusky labyrinths," said I, "you are not compelled to find her; the more unintelligible the discussion becomes, the better for the sceptic; you may not only doubt, but doubt whether you even understand your doubts. You may play 'hide and seek' there for ten thousand years." "For all eternity," was his reply. But he said he had no wish to seek any such covert, nor to play the sceptic.

I told him I was glad to find that his scepticism did not—to use Burke's expression on another subject—"go down to the foundations." He answered that he was afraid it did on all subjects really of any significance to man. "As to the present life," he continued, "I am quite willing to accept Bayle's dictum: 'Les Sceptiques ne nioient pas qu'il ne se fallut conformer aux coutumes de son pays, et pratiquer des devoirs de la morale, et prendre parti en ces choses la sur des probabilites, sans attendre la certitude.'"

I was not sorry that he took Bayle's limits of scepticism rather than Hume's: I told him so.

Hume, he said, was evidently playing with scepticism; for himself, he had no heart to jest upon the subject. The Scotch sceptic acknowledged that the metaphysical riddles of his "absolute scepticism" exercised, and ought to exercise, no practical influence on himself or any man; that the moment he quitted them, and entered into society, "they appeared to him so frigid and unnatural" that he could not get himself to interest himself about them any further; that a dinner with a friend, or a game at backgammon, put them all to flight, and restored him to the undoubting belief of all the maxims which his meditative hours had stripped him of. It was natural, Harrington said; for such scepticism was impossible. He added, however, that, had Hume been honest, he would never have employed his subtilty in the one-sided way he did; "for," said he, "if his principles be true, they tell just as much against those who deny any religious dogmas as against those who maintain them. Yet everywhere in relation to religion—take the question of miracles, for example—he argues not as a sceptic at all, but as a dogmatist, only on the negative side. If his doctrine of 'Ideas' and of 'Causation' be true, he ought to have maintained that; for any thing we know, miracles may have occurred a thousand times, and may as often occur again. Hume," he said, "was amusing himself; but I am not: nor can any one really feel—many pretend to do so without feeling at all—the pressure of such doubts as envelop me, and be content to amuse themselves with them."

I found it very difficult to attack him in the intrenchments he had thrown up. I thought I would just try for a moment to act on the Spiritualist's advice, and, throwing aside all "intellectual and logical processes," all appeals to the "critical faculties," advance "lightly equipped as Priestley himself," making my appeal to the "spiritual faculty." I cannot say that the result was at all what "spiritualism" promises. On the contrary, Harrington parried all such appeals in a twinkling. He said he did not admit that he had any "spiritual faculty" which acted in isolation from the intellect; that religious faith must be founded on religious truth, and even quasi-religious faith on quasi-religious truth. That the intellect and the moral and spiritual faculties (if he had any) acted together, since he felt that he was indivisible, and that the former man be satisfied as well as the latter; that it was so with all his faculties, none of which acted in isolation; that however hunger might prompt to food, he never took what his senses of sight and touch told him was sand or gravel; that if he indulged love, or pity, or anger, it was only as the senses and the imagination and the understanding were busied with objects adequate to elicit them; that if beautiful poetry excited emotion, it was only as he understood the meaning and connection of the words. "And what else are you doing now, while urging me to realize by direct 'insight,' by 'gazing' on 'spiritual truth,' and so forth, the things you wish me to realize, —I say what are you doing but appealing to me, through these same media of the senses and the imagination, by rhetoric and logic? How else can you gain any access to my supposed 'spiritual faculties'?" I replied, that even the spiritualist did that,—he endeavored to convince men, I supposed. "Yes," he replied, laughing, "because he is privileged doubly to abuse logic at one and the same time; to abuse it in one sense as a fallacious instrument of religious conviction in the hands of others, and to abuse it in another sense, as an instrument of fallacious conviction in his own. But you are not so privileged."

Harrington insisted on the fact, that the whole thing was a delusion; I might appeal, he said, if I thought proper, to any faculties, or rudiments of faculties, he possessed, spiritual or otherwise; but he really could not pretend even to comprehend one syllable I said, if I denied him the use of his understanding. I might as well, and for the same reasons, appeal to him without the intervention of his senses, —for his "soul" could not be more different from his "intellect" than from them. "Besides," he continued, "I know you do not imagine that any spiritual faculty acts thus independently of the intellect; and therefore you are only mocking me."

I thought it best to cut my cable and leave this unsafe anchorage.

I told him that, as he doubted whether man had any distinctly marked religious and spiritual faculties, while I affirmed that he had, —although he was quite right in supposing that I did not believe that they acted except in close conjunction with the intellect,—it made it difficult to hold any discourse with him. Doubting the Bible, he had also learned to doubt that doctrine of human depravity, which he once thought harmonized—and I still thought did alone harmonize—the great facts of man's essentially religious constitution and his eternally varied and most egregiously corrupt religious development.

However, I told him that, even in the concession of the probable as a sufficient rule of conduct in this life, he had granted enough to condemn utterly his sceptical position.

He now looked sincerely interested. "Let me," said I, "ask you a few questions." He glanced towards me an arch look. "What!" he said, "you wish to get the Socratic weather-gage of me, do you? You forget, my dear uncle, that you introduced me to the Platonic dialectics."

"Heaven forgive you," said I, "for the thought. You know I make little pretension to your favorite erotetic method: and if I did, oh! do you not know, Harrington, my son, that, if I could but convince you on this one subject, I would consent to be confuted by you on every other every day in the year?—nay, to be trampled under your feet?" I added, with a faltering voice. "And, besides that, do you not know that there can be no rivalry between father and son; that it is the only human affection which forbids it; that pride, and not envy, swells a father's heart, when he finds himself outdone?"

He was not unmoved; told me he knew that I loved him well, and desired me to ask any questions I pleased.

He saw how gratified his affection made me feel. I said, gayly, "Well, then, let me ask (as our old friend with the queer face might have said), Do you not grant there is such a thing as prudence?"

"I do," he said.

"But to be prudent is, I think, to do that which is most likely to promote our happiness."

"That which seems most likely, for I do not admit that we know what will."

"That which seems, then, for it is of no consequence."

"Of no consequence! surely there is a little difference between being and seeming to be."

"All the difference in the world," I replied, "but not in relation to our choice of conduct, We choose, if prudent, that conduct which, on the whole, deliberately seems most likely to promote our happiness, and, as far as that goes, what seems is."

"I grant it; and that probabilities are the measure of it," said Harrington.

"You are of Bayle's opinion, that there is in relation to the present life a probable prudent, and that it would be gross folly to neglect it?"

"Certainly."

"And in proportion as the interest was greater, and extended over a longer time, you would be content with less and less probabilities to justify action?"

"I freely grant I should."

"If now a servant came into the room to say that he feared your farm-house at King's O—- was on fire, though you might think it but faintly probable, you would not think it prudent to neglect the information?"

"I certainly should not."

"And if you were immortal here on earth, and the neglect of some probably, or (we will say) only possibly, true information in relation to some vital interest might affect it through that whole immortality, you would consider it prudent to act on almost no probability at all, on the very faintest presumption of the truth?"

"I must in honesty agree with you so far."

"What does your scepticism promise you, if it be well founded? Much happiness?"

"To me none; rather the contrary; and to none, I think, can it promise much."

"And if Christianity be true,—for I speak only of that,—I know there is not in your estimate any other religion that comes into competition with it—immortal felicity, immortal misery, depends on it?"

"Yes; it cannot be denied."

"You admit that scepticism may be false, even though it has a thousand to one in its favor; for by its very principles you know nothing, and can know nothing, on the subjects to which its doubts extend?"

"I acknowledge it."

"And Christianity may be true by the very same reasoning, though the chances be only as one to a thousand?"

"It is so."

"Then by your own confession you are not prudent, for you do not act in relation to Christianity on the principles on which you say you act in the affairs of the present life; where you acknowledge that the least presumption will move you, when the interests are sufficiently permanent and great."

He told me, with a smile, I might have arrived at the same conclusion without any argument; for he was willing to acknowledge in general that he was not prudent, and in relation to this very subject should always admit, with Byron, that the sincere Christian had an undeniable advantage over both the infidel and the sceptic; "since," he added, putting the admission into a very concise form, "their best is his worst."

"Very well," said I, "Harrington, only remember that your imprudence is none the less for your admission of it."

"None in the world," he admitted; but be contended there was a flaw in the argument; for that it was impossible to accept any religion on merely prudential grounds. And he then went on, in his curious way, to lament that an unreasonable candor prevented him from here taking advantage of an ingenious argument adopted by some of the modern "spiritualists" in reasoning on the probabilities of a "future life." They contend that it is necessary to insulate the soul (if it would discover "spiritual truth") from all bias of self- interest,—from all oblique glances at prospective advantage; in fact, that only he is fully equipped for discovering "spiritual truth" who is disinterestedly indifferent as to whether it be discovered or not. Harrington said he could not pretend that even the sceptic was so favorably circumstanced as that. "For my part," he said, "I cannot honestly adopt this view, and always think it prudent to accept as large an armful of happiness as I can grasp, when truth and duty do not come in the way."

"And in the name of common sense," I said, "what truth and duty are to stand in your way? Is not your truth, that there is none?"

"Yes," he replied, smiling; "but is not the truth the truth, as Falstaff said? though to be sure it was when he was manufacturing his eleven men in buckram out of two. However, as Mr. Newman, when some one foretold that he would be some day a Socinian or an infidel, replied, 'Well, if Socinianism or any thing else be the truth, Socinians or any thing else let us be'; so I must say, if no truth be the truth, no-truth men let us be."

"Very well," I replied. "Then, it seems, truth stands in the way of acting prudently; and, instead of remedying our first paradox, we have started on another, that truth and prudence are here opposed: for in no other cases (I think) in which you apply your own rule of the probable to the present life will a mind of your comprehensiveness say they are opposed; I am sure you will admit the general maxims, that to lie is inexpedient, and that honesty is the best policy, and so on."

He granted it.

"But further," said I, "what sort of truth is this, which involves duty, and yet is opposed to prudence? It is, that there is no truth, it seems, and this completes the paradox. This strange truth—the Alpha Omega of the sceptic, his first and his last—is to involve duty; he is to be a confessor and martyr for it! Nothing less than happiness and prudence are to be sacrificed to conscience in the matter. Truly, if the truth that there is no truth involves any duty, it ought to be the duty of believing that there is no duty to be performed; and you might as well call yourself a no-duty man as a no-truth man."

He smiled, but replied, that, seriously, it was impossible to adopt any religious opinions, or to change them, at the bidding of the will.

I admitted, of course, that the will had no direct power in the matter; but reminded him that, if he meant it had no influence, or even a little, on the formation or retention of opinions, no one could be a more strenuous assertor of the contrary than he had often been. I reminded him it was so notorious that man usually managed to believe as he wished, that was no one maxim more frequently on the lips of the greatest philosophers, orators, and poets. But I added that there is also a legitimate way of influencing will, and that is through the understanding; and was with the hope of inducing him to reconsider the paradoxes of scepticism, and not with any expectation of instant or violent change, that I was anxious to enumerate them on the present occasion.

It is impossible for me to recollect exactly the course of the long conversation that ensued; suffice it to say, that he willingly granted many other paradoxes, some of them so readily, as to confirm the suspicion I had sometimes felt, that he must often have doubted the validity of his doubts. He admitted, for example, that since men in general (whether from the possession of a distinct religious faculty, though it might be corrupt and depraved, or a mere rudimentary tendency to religion) had adapted some religion, religious scepticism, in an intelligible sense, was opposed to nature; —that it was equally opposed to nature, inasmuch as the general constitution of man sought and loved certainty, or supposed certainty, and found a state of perpetual doubt intolerable; and that if this be attributed to a tendency to dogmatism, that is the very tendency of nature which is affirmed;—that it is opposed to nature again in this way, that whereas restlessness and agitation of mind are usually, at all events, warnings to seek relief, scepticism produces these as its pure and proper result;—that since, by the confession of every mind worthy of respect, the great doctrines of religion, if not true, are such that we cannot but wish they were; since, by his own confession, scepticism has nothing to allure in it, and rather causes misery than happiness; and since, by his confession and that of every one else, men in general easily believe as they wish, it is an unaccountable paradox, that any one should remain a sceptic for a day, except, indeed, from a guilty fear of the truth;—that, since scepticism tends to misery, it is better not to know its truth, and that therefore ignorance is better than knowledge;—that, if Christianity be an illusion, it, at all events, tends to make men happier than the truth of scepticism, and that therefore error is better than truth;—that religious scepticism is open to the same objection as scepticism absolute; for whereas the last is taunted with trusting to reason to prove that reason can in nothing be trusted, religious scepticism is chargeable with declaring the certainty of all uncertainty, and, while proclaiming: that there is nothing true, avowing that that is truth and lastly, that if, in consistency, it leaves even that uncertainty uncertain, it arrives at a conclusion which everlastingly remits us to renewed investigation!

"But," said he, "the sceptic does affirm the certainty of all uncertainty. That is precisely my state of mind, even in relation to Christianity. Both its truth and falsehood are—uncertain."

"Then," said I, "I must not say you reject Christianity, but only that you do not receive it?

"Precisely so," said he, with a smile and a blush at the same time. I was much amused with this logical ceremoniousness, by which a man is not to say that he rejects any thing so conditioned, but only that he does not receive it. I told him I imagined they came to much the same thing.

"It is impossible," said he, after a pause, "to affirm any thing on these subjects."

"It is equally impossible?" said I, "to affirm nothing; on the contrary, you sceptics have two conclusions, though in a negative form, for every body else's one,—together with the pleasant addition, that they are contraries to one another; and as Pascal said that the man who attempted to be neuter between the sceptic and dogmatist was a sceptic par excellence, so the genuine sceptic may be called a dogmatist par excellence."

"For my part," said he, smiling sadly, "I hardly think it is very difficult either to believe nothing or every thing. Fellowes, you see, has believed everything, and now he is in a fair way to believe nothing. However, all I mean is, that the evidence on these subjects reduces one to a state of complete mental suspense, in which it is equally unreasonable to say that we believe, as to say that we believe not. However, I grant you most of the paradoxes you mention; but a sceptic is not to be startled by paradoxes, I trow; alas! they prove nothing."

"Prove nothing! nay, I think you do your system injustice; I think it is entitled to the distinction of making great discoveries. You confess that the only truth on these subjects is, that there is no truth; that to act on this truth necessitates a conduct opposed to nature, to prudence, to happiness; that it is a knowledge worse than ignorance; that it is a truth that is worse than error; that it never did, will, or can be embraced by many, and that it makes the few who embrace it miserable; you admit further, with me, that men generally believe as they wish. Why, then, do you not fly from so hideous a monster, on the very ground (only in this case it is stronger) on which you doubt all religious systems,—that is, on account of the supposed paradoxes they involve? It may be but a little argument with you, who seem to demand demonstration of religious truth; but for myself, I feel that, whatever be the truth, such a chimera as scepticism, bristling all over with paradoxes, must be—a lie."

"Well," he replied, "but then which religion is the true?"

"Nay," I said, "that is an after consideration; if you can but be brought to believe that any is true, I know you will believe but one."

"You touched just now," he replied, "on the very difficulty. I shall believe as soon as any one gives me what you truly say I ask,— demonstration of the truth of some one of the thousand and one religious systems which men have believed."

"And that, demonstration," said I, "you cannot have; for God has not granted demonstration to man on that or any other subject in which duty is involved."

"But why might I not have had it? and should I not have had it, if it had been incumbent on me to believe it?"

We had now come to the very knot of the whole argument.

"Incumbent on you to believe! I suppose you mean, if there had been any system which you could not but believe; which you must believe whether you would or not. No doubt, in that case, the requisite evidence would have been such that scepticism would have been impossible; that word 'incumbent' implies duty; and that word duty is the key to the whole mystery, for it implies the possibility of resisting its claims. We do not speak of its being incumbent on a man to run out of a burning house, or to swim, if he can, when thrown into deep water. He cannot help it. If there be a Supreme Ruler of the universe, and if the posture of his intelligent creatures be that of submissive obedience to him, it is inconceivable that a man can ever have experience of his being willing to perform that duty with the sort of demonstration which you demand; and, for aught we know, it may be impossible, constituted as we are, that we should ever be actually trained to that duty, except in the midst of very much less than certainty. Now, if this be so,—and I defy you or any man to prove that it may not be so,—then we are asking a simple impossibility when we ask that we may be freed from these conditions; for it is asking that we may perform our duty, under circumstances which shall render all duty impossible." I pursued this subject at some length, and reminded him that the supposed law of our religious condition was throughout in analogy with that of the entire condition of our present life, and in conformity with his own rule of the probable; that it is probable evidence only that is given to man in either case, and "probable evidence," as Bishop Butler says, "often of even wretchedly insufficient character." Nature, or rather God himself, everywhere cries aloud to us, "O mortals! certainty, demonstration, infallibility, are not for you, and shall not be given to you; for there must be a sphere for faith, hope, sincerity, diligence, patience." And as if to prove to us, not only that this evidence is what we must trust to, but that we safely may, He impels us by strong necessities of our lower nature operating on the higher (which would otherwise, perhaps, plead for the sceptic's inaction in relation to this as well as to another world) to play our part; if we stand shivering on the brink of action, necessity plunges us headlong in; if we fear to hoist the sail, the strength of the current of life snaps our moorings, and compels us to drive. I reminded him, that the general result also shows that, as man must, so he may, can, will, shall, (and so through all the moods and tenses of contingency,) do well; that faith in that same sort of evidence which the sceptic rejects when urged in behalf of religion, prompts the farmer to cast in his seed, though he can command no blink of sunshine, nor a drop of rain; the merchant to commit his treasures to the deep, though they may all go to the bottom, and sometimes do; the physician to essay the cure of his patient, though often half in doubt whether his remedy will kill or save. "It is," said I, "in that same faith that we build, and plant, and lay our little plans each day; sometimes coming to nothing, but generally, and according to the fidelity and manliness with which we have conducted ourselves, securing more than a return for the moral capital embarked; and even where this is not the case, issuing, when there have been the qualities which would naturally secure success, a vigor and robustness of character, which, like the rude health glowing in the weather-beaten mariner, who has buffeted with wind and wave, are a more precious recompense than success itself. In these examples God says to us in effect, 'On such evidence you must and shall act,' and shows us that we safely may. Without promising us absolute success in all our plans, or absolute truth in the investigation of evidence, he says, in either case, 'Do your best; be faithful to the light you have, diligent and conscientious in your investigations of available evidence, great or little,—act fearlessly on what appears the truth, and leave the rest to me.'"

Harrington here asked the question I expected:—"But suppose different men coming (as they do) on religious subjects to different conclusions, after the diligence and fidelity of which you speak, what then?"

"Then, if the fidelity and diligence have been absolute,—if all has been done which, under the circumstances, could be done,—I doubt not they are blameless. But I fear there are very few who can absolutely say this; and for those who cannot say it at all, their guilt is proportionate to the demands which the momentous nature of the subject made on diligence and fidelity."

"I suppose" said he, with some hesitation, "you will not allow that I have exercised this impartial search; and yet, supposing that I have, will you not hold me blameless on the very principles now laid down?"

It was a painful question; but I was resolved I would have nothing to reproach myself with; and therefore answered steadily, that it was not for me to judge the degree of blame which attached to his present state of mind, which I trusted was only transient; that the argument from sincerity was itself only one of the probable things of which we had been speaking; that, so subtle are the operations of the human mind, so mysterious the play of the passions and affections, the reason and conscience, so intimate the connection amongst all our powers and faculties, that it is one of the most difficult things to be able to say, with truth, that we are perfectly sincere; that I did not see any difficulty in believing that there is many a man who, without hesitation and without any conscious hypocrisy, would avow his sincerity, who, upon being suffered to look into his own mind through a moral solar microscope, would see there all sorts of misshapen monsters, and turn away from the spectacle with disgust and horror; that such a microscope (to speak in figure) might one day be applied by that Power to whom only the human heart is fully known. I added, however, that, if I knew more of his mental history for some years past, (into which my affection-should never induce me impertinently to pry,) I might, perhaps, in some measure, account for his scepticism; that I could even conceive cases of minds so "encompassed with infirmity," or so dependent on states of health, as to render such a state involuntary, and therefore to take them out of the sphere of our argument. But, apart from some such causes, I plainly told him I could not permit myself to believe that religious scepticism could be free from heavy blame, if only on the ground that such as feel it do not act consistently with its maxims in other cases, where the evidence is of the same dubious nature, or rather is much more dubious. The parallel case would be, (if we could find it,) of a man whose interest urgently required him to act one way or the other, and who, instead of acting accordingly, sat down in absolute inaction, on the score that he did not know what course to pursue. That indecision would be always blamable. "Ah!" said I, "those cool heads and skilful hands which pilot the little bark of their worldly fortunes amidst such dangerous rocks and breakers, under such dark and stormy skies, what can they say, if asked why they gave up all thought of religion on the score of doubt, when its hopes are at least as high as those of the schemes of earthly success, and its claims at least as strong as those of present duty? What will they be able to say?

"O Harrington!" I continued, in some such words as these, "supposing the draught of our present condition not to be such as I have sketched; that the sceptical view of the gloom in which we are placed is the true one, and that the Christian's is false; which, nevertheless, is likely to be not merely the happier, but the nobler being,—he who sits down in querulous repining or slothful inactivity, as the result of doubt, or he who, buoyant with faith and hope, encounters the gloom, and, while longing for the dawn, is confident that it will come? But if that sketch be a true one,—if the trial of which I have spoken be necessary for you and for all, to develop and discipline those qualities which alone will elicit and mature an Immortal Virtue, and secure to us at last the privilege of indefectible 'children of God,'—then with what feelings will you hear the Great Master say, 'In every other case but this, you acted on the principles and maxims by which I taught you (not obscurely) that I summoned you to act in this case also: doubts and difficulties were necessary to you as to all, and I exacted of you no more than were necessary ultimately to secure for you an eternal exemption from them. But because you could not have that certainty which the very necessity of the case excluded, you declined the trial, and have accounted yourself unworthy of eternal life!' Ah! how different if you could hear him say, 'It was indeed a temptation; amidst numberless blessings denied to others, I yet gave you, too, your trial;—the questionable talent of an inquisitive intellect, and leisure to use or abuse it. Tempted to absolute doubt, you would not succumb to it; you would not be so inconsistent here as to relinquish those maxims on which I compelled you to act in every other case in life, nor deny to ME the confidence which you granted to every common friend! Warned by the very misery which was sent to caution you that in that direction lay death, you struggled against the incursions of your subtle foes, and you overcame. Welcome, child of clay! welcome to that world in which there is no more NIGHT!'"

We had been talking on till long past midnight; and the lamp suddenly warned us that its light was just expiring. Harrington took off the shade, and was about to light a candle by the dying flame, when it went out. "It matters not," he said, "I have the means of kindling a light close at hand." "Let it alone," said I, rising, and gently laying my hand on his arm, and speaking in a low voice, but with much earnestness; "this darkness is an emblem of our present life. You cannot see me, but you hear my voice and feel the touch of my hand. For any thing you know, I may be seized with a sudden fit of insanity. I may be about to stab you in this darkness; such things have been. You have lost, with the light, more than half the indications of affection which that would disclose. But you trust to the probable; your pulse does not beat any the quicker, nor do your nerves tremble. You may have similar, nay, how much stronger proofs (if you will) of the confidence with which you may trust God, and Him, the compassionate One, "whom he hath sent," in spite of all the gloom in which this life is involved. That certainty for which you have just now asked will only be granted when the darkness is passed away; and then you will 'rejoice in the light of his countenance.' And, further," I continued, "there is yet one thing which I wish to say to you; and I feel as if I could say it better in this darkness; for I will not venture to say that I should not manifest more feeling than is consistent in a hard-hearted metaphysician. Yes! it is on the side of feeling that I would also address you. You will say, feeling is not argument? No; but is man all reason? I firmly believe, indeed, that man is not called upon to do any thing for which his reason does not tell him that he has sufficient evidence; but a part of that very evidence is often the dictate of feeling; and genuine reason will listen to the heart, as not always, nor perhaps more frequently than otherwise, a suspicious pleader. If, as Pascal says so truly, it sometimes has its reasons which the reason cannot comprehend, it has also its reasons which the reason thoroughly understands.

"You were early an orphan; you do not remember your mother; but I do; ah, how well! I saw her the last time she ever saw you. You were brought to her bedside when she was in the full possession of all her faculties, and deeply conscious that she had not many hours to live. She looked at you as you were held in your nurse's arms, smiling upon her with to me an agonizing unconsciousness of your approaching orphanage. She gazed upon you with that intense look of inexpressible affection which only maternal love, sharpened by death, can give; she looked long and earnestly, but spoke not one syllable. As you were at length taken from the room, she followed you with her eyes till the door closed, and then it seemed as if the light of this world had been quenched in them for ever. 'I charge you,' she said at length, 'let me see him again.' I made a motion as if to recall the attendant 'Not here,' she added, laying her hand gently on my arm, and I understood her but too well. You know whether I have in any degree fulfilled my trust. But is it possible that I can think of an utter failure, and not be more than troubled? And if Christianity be true, and if I am so happy as to obtain admission to that 'blessed country into which an enemy never entered, and from which a friend never went away,' and she whom I loved so well should ask me why you come not,—that she had tarried for you long,—must I say that you will never come? that her child had wandered from the fold of the Good Shepherd, and had gone I knew not whither? that I sought him in the lonely glens and mountains, but found him not? I hardly know, but I almost think—such was the love she had for you—that such reply would shade that radiant face even amidst the glories of Paradise. And now—let all this be a dream—suppose that not simply by your own fault you will never see that mother more, but that from the sad truth of your no truth—you never can; that the 'Vale, vale, in aeternum, vale,' is all that you can say to her: yet I say this,—that to live only in the hope of the possibility of fulfilling the better wishes of such a friend, and rejoining her for ever in (if you will) the fabulous 'islands of the blest,' would not only make you a happier, but even a nobler, being than your present mood can ever make you. My FABULOUS is better than your TRUE."

I felt that he was not unmoved. I was myself moved too much to allow me to stay any longer, and saying that I could find my way very well to my chamber in the dark, where I had the means of kindling a light, I softly closed the door and left him. _

As I was to leave very early in the morning, I had told Harrington that I should depart for the neighboring town (whither his servant was to drive me) without disturbing him. But I could not tear myself away, after the singular close of our interview on the last evening, without a more express farewell. I tapped at his chamber door, but, receiving no reply, gently entered. He was resting in unquiet slumber. A table, lamp, and books, by his bedside, bore witness to his perseverance in that pernicious habit which he had early formed! I gently drew back one of the curtains, and let in the light of the summer morning on his pallid, but most speaking features, and gazed on them with a sad and foreboding feeling. I recalled those days when I used nightly to visit the slumbers of the little orphan, and trace in his features the image of his mother. He was not aroused by my entrance; most likely he had sunk to slumber at a late hour. Presently he began to talk in his sleep, which was almost a constant habit in his younger days, and which I used to consider one of the symptoms of that intense cerebral activity by which he was distinguished. On the present occasion I thought I could interpret the fitful and fleeting images which were chasing each other by the laws of association through his mind. "But how shall I know that these thing which I call real, are different from the phenomena of sleep which I call real?" Alas! thought I, the ruling passion is strong in sleep, as in waking moments! How I dread lest it should be strong "in death" itself, of which this sleep is the image! After a pause, an expression of deepest sadness crept over the features, and he murmured, with a slight alteration, two lines from Coleridge's translation of that glorious scene in which Wallenstein looks forth into the windy night in search of his "star," and thinks of that brighter light of his life which had been just extinguished. Harrington used to say, that he preferred the translation of that scene even to the magnificent original itself. These lines, (now a little varied,) I had often heard him quote with delight:—

THE END