mer conceptions of an infinite fiend, fade into shadows, is believed by thousands and tens of thousands, to-day, to be the God of the Christian. If "our Father who is in Heaven" is such a being,—if he has unfeelingly placed us here as helpless. beings, when he might just as well as not have done otherwise, and "making us love so, hope so, our hearts so full of feeling," has determined to lead us by a "certain infallible" road to sin, and, sinking us through eternally descending depths of suffering, sit, to gloat over our woe, then, "life is the most tremendous doom that can be inflicted on a creature." And when it is said "free-agency is not violated," our whole nature cries out, "so much the worse! What a use to make of infinite knowledge!" And through the cycles of eternity, every sufferer would hurl back the exclamation, "it is not right-no possible amount of good to ever so many, can make it right to deprave ever so few; happiness and misery cannot be measured so." To such a nature as Mrs. Marvyn's, possessed of such a belief as this, came the news of that shipwreck, and the supposed loss of James, and, booming along over the white capped waves, the awful question-"where"-a question most solemn over every coffin, but to this mother's stricken heart, the birthpang of woe. Now was the crisis of the torture of her life. And those terrific exclamations, which I never read without shuddering, are but drops, wrung out from her soul, of that anguish which had been gathering for years. Not herself alone, but the race, seemed pursued by Siva, the Destroyer; the curse of eternal death muttered in every house, and escape appeared hopeless. Well might "her soft brown eyes have a flash of despairing wildness in them, like that of a hunted animal, turning, in its death-struggle, on its pursuer." Well might she shriek, in her agony, "Leave me alone, I am a lost spirit."

It has been said that she misunderstood Dr. Hopkins. Call it misunderstanding if you will, it matters little; for when a man, of such devout spirit and powerful intellect as John Wesley, could say, in stern rebuke, to the preachers of that day, "Your God is my devil," it is not strange, that those who walked the humbler paths of life, and had not been trained to the hair-splitting distinctions of the schools, gaining but partial

views, and failing to comprehend the whole system, saw in the teachings of ministers, only the iron mail of remorseless fate; and found, their whole spiritual life chilled and withered by these soulless reasonings. We can best pursue this thought in the words of one, whom to know is to love, and love to revere. "Every distortion of theological opinion, it matters little what distortion, is perilous somewhere in the progress of its dissemination. False combinations of doctrines, which, isolated, are true, and false isolations of doctrines, which in combination are true, are obstructions to the work of God, we may be assured, at some point in their history. The disproportioned shading of a single doctrine, it matters little what doctrine, will surely meet, among men, some mind whose way to heaven it will darken. The foreshortening of a single group in the scriptural theology, it matters little what group, may so impair its truthfulness of perspective, that to some soul, somewhere, at some time, in some juncture of probationary discipline, it shall seem to be a distorted theology, a caricature of theology, a hideous theology, and therefore a false theology; a theology which no amount of evidence could prove to a sane mind, a theology which no authority could enforce upon a sound heart. That soul, such a theology—it matters little what extreme of opinion it represents-may consign to perdition, and yet it may be a gospel which angels have been supposed to preach.”

Again, it is said that Mrs. Marvyn uses Bible language. True, she does use Bible words, but their appearance and import are as much changed, as a block in a mosaic would be, by transferring it from a picture of Christ to a picture of Apollyon.

It is further affirmed, that Mrs. Marvyn's belief does not result from Dr. Hopkins' system. That it does not from his system as a whole, we cheerfully admit; but this is because much, which has no Biblical foundation, must be eliminated, before it becomes consistent. There are, however, doctrines which, as taught in the Bible, are the joy of every right heart, but which, as then preached, not merely by him, but by a numerous clergy, and which as now held and preached by whole synods of ministers, do form a human, unbiblical, and false

theology, of which those fearful utterances are the logical conclusion. One of these tenets, viz: That sin is the occasion of the greatest good to the universe, was peculiar to the Dr.'s system. The other, the doctrine of "Decrees," is common to the Christian world. Let us consider them in their order.

It is, we believe, universally admitted, that, "The highest well-being of God, and of the universe of sentient existences, is the end on which ultimate preference, choice, intention, ought to terminate." Let this be the major premiss of a syllogism. Accept, as true, for a moment, Dr. Hopkins' theory, and make it the minor premiss. Now, behold the conclusion, and then ask yourself, "How could I live under such teaching ?" He who sins, is securing the highest good of the universe; he who sins most, accomplishes most, and he who sins least, helps forward this end more than the holiest sinless one. I know it is said, that the immediate result is only evil, and that "God overrules it for good." But the conclusion is the same; for every being is irremediably bound to give God the opportunity to bring about, through his sin, the highest good of the universe. Nay, more, God is obligated to compel creatures to sin, if necessary, that He may thereby secure this consummation. But why follow out further the awful results of this theory-a theory which, it should be remembered, is not once hinted at in the Bible.

"But," one cries, "the doctrine of decrees is taught in the Bible." Yes, it is. God, in His infinite condescension, has opened to us a little the counsels of eternity, and shown to us that then, as it were, His infinite energies were concentrated on the salvation of mankind. The knowledge of every specific act is declared; but that knowledge is used in behalf of holiness, not sin. In this doctrine, the most solemn problems of our existence are involved, but no solution is given. The humble soul will therefore wait patiently, till God reveals; for, from the nature of things, upon it, finite mind can cast no gleam of light, and to attempt it, is to attempt usurpation. It is fearful to think how men have piled up thicker and higher the mists of human speculation, until the plain Bible revelation has become magnified, as a monstrous silhouette, a Spectre

We have But let us

of the Broken, glowering over the gate of Heaven. seen what it is. We have no need to look again. joyfully remember, that the Bible is a book of love, not hate; the love of an infinite Father, not the malignity of an omnipotent Siva. The Bible gives us such passages as this; "What could have been done more in my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?"-teaching that every attribute of Deity has been laid under contribution, to make men better, not worse, and that those who are lost, "will not come unto Christ, that they might have life."

The condition of the world is sad enough at the best. Viewed in the most charitable light which the Bible warrants, it is so tremendously awful, that even a partial conception of the reality, shakes the soul to its center, to think "what noble minds, what warm, generous hearts, what splendid natures, are wrecked and thrown away by thousands; natures, such as were those of Chatterton, Shelley, and Poe, by the side of whose graves the ages might stand and weep. Then why deepen the gloom by presenting distorted views of the all holy One?

ART. II.-KNOWLEDGE IN ITS RELATION TO FAITH.

THE universal chance of the Atheist is inconceivable. For the human mind is framed in harmony with the order of the universe; and if it seems at any time to see confusion, it is in the view and not real. To affirm that there can be positive disorder, is to assert the truth of Atheism. In all apparent, temporary disorder, there is a secret, reigning order, which, if it be not the best conceivable, is the best actually possible; and this is always manifest at the end, if not before.

Many misjudge of things, because they see them separately, and not in their relations as mutual parts of a combined whole. Yet every mind possesses, or is forming, a whole, proportioned in size and perfection to its capacity, its clearness or trueness, and its actual range. The tendency of the mind in its normal action, whether it respect its own state and manifested activities, or its conception of beings and things, is to unity. It requires simplicity, consistency, harmony; it would see in all things a likeness. Yet though it would always, it does not at first, nor soon. Doubtless the idea of unity is native to the mind; but when this original germ is developed into a positive faith in the actual unity of all beings and things, can be determined in his own case only by each individual. But the faith mightily outstrips the knowledge, leaping from the little. whole already known to the imagined vast whole of the entire Cosmos.

Faith incites to the pursuit of knowledge, and gives to it, when gained, character and unity; knowledge corrects, confirms, strengthens faith. Knowledge is an argument for faith; faith explains knowledge.

And when knowledge comes, it does not dissipate faith, but rather renders it concrete and actual; and yet it stretches, and will ever, into the illimitable distance of space and time. If we would be technical, let faith stand for the Reason's idea, and knowledge for the Understanding's notion. But it is the very things we would know, by whatever terms.