of their fellow men after death, is but a type of what is ever going on in the world, which "is full of judgment days:" while to those who maintain that future salvation and a future coming of Christ were in the mind of the writer of the words quoted above, I must object that spiritual things are matters of experience.

I know the difficulty felt even by free inquirers in reconciling Christ's conscious humility with his unconsciousness of sin; above all with his appreciation of such consciousness in others. Of the penitent Publican he says, "this man went down to his house justified rather than the other." Is this view irreconcilable with Paul's assertion, "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified : for (or because) by the law is the knowledge of sin ?” I think not. Self-abasement is a high attainment, but not he highest; the last result of our best performances, but not of our aspirations; nay, it is incompatible with the abiding conviction, "I can of mine own self do nothing;" -that is the genuine self-forgetful humility, which says: "I rather glory in my infirmities." "To despair," says Fenelon, "when we see our own wretchedness is not humility, but only a more abominable kind of pride." It may be objected that Paul speaks of himself as "of sinners chief;" but what is the ground given for a representation seemingly at variance with that which he elsewhere makes of his own moral character? "I was a

blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious." Was it not with Paul as with Luther, who repented most of past superstitions; of his penances more than of his misdeeds?

Under the law, Paul's "knowledge of sin" had been artificially aggravated into a conception of God as inimical to man this is the work of superstition everywhere, and fully accounts for the greater severity used by Christ towards the superstitious than the merely sensual. Under the Gospel, his "knowledge of sin," once held by Paul to be a gain," was by him counted "loss:" and here I must suggest; had an insistence upon the separation of God and man, and the consequent necessity of a substituted sacrifice to procure God's grace or pardon for him, constituted the essence of the Apostles' doctrine, whence could arise the need of qualifying cautions such as these? abound?"

"Shall we continue in sin, that grace may

"If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves." On the presumption, however, that a denial of such separation, and a declaration of God's unconditioned favour, constituted the substance of that doctrine, these cautions are fully accounted for, as also the scandalous abuse so soon made of Christian liberty. Too evident is it that within the early Christian Church, as now without it, the denial of depravity was attended by a remarkable display of it, that "the bold sensualist could use the name of" religion as now of "philosophy to gild his crimes."* Do we ask how came it to pass that a declaration of the oneness of God and man, received and proclaimed by persons spiritually it would seem in advance of our time, was yet followed by a consciousness of separation, not in the

* Emerson.

0

power of priestcraft to originate, which uttered itself in a cry going up from the heart of Christendom, as from the heart of one man, "Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin?"* How, but because the Gospel was preached amongst, and lowered to the level of peoples sunk in vice and superstition, from whence none can be delivered save by the stern discipline and contrite awakenings of the moral law, because only by one process can the heart be freed from "an evil" (or accusing) "conscience;" because only "through the law can we become dead to the law;" because only to "the pure in heart" is it given to "see" aright himself and God. Happy in its unconsciousness, the child is "alive without the law;" so is the perfect man; but between these two stages the battle of life has to be fought and won: and "let not him that putteth on the harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.”

* "St. Simeon Stylites." Let us not mistake this cry, nor its weak and dying echoes in wordy confessions that we are "miserable sinners," for the "groanings which cannot be uttered" of that repentance which succeeds a consciousness of our own spirit as a holy spirit. This, as God's voice, "his word abiding in us," forbids our saying we have no sin," yet makes Him "manifest to take away our sins," and reveals us to ourselves not as "miserable sinners," but as blessed aspirants strong to overcome evil, in that perfection is our birthright as the children of a Father who " is perfect.”

B.

Page 5, line 18-"the unmoral supernatural." To the use of this phrase the objection may be brought that it gives a name to what has no existence in the mind which recognises the supernatural only in a revelation to the moral sense of the Being and Character of the God of Nature, whose voice first speaks in man, as "In the fifth drop Himself He flings,

And Conscious Law is King of Kings.

I can, however, find no other phrase by which to characterize an appeal supposed to be made to our physical senses, on behalf of truths which can only be apprehended by the moral sense. Were it even possible to trace apparent interference with the laws of nature to the agency of any human being, this would neither quicken the conscience to apprehend-nor rouse it to enforce the truths he might teach, in any but those who already know its voice to be the voice of the Holy Lord God Almighty, the Creator of the universe. Now, not the descent of an angel from heaven, nor one risen from the dead, could add anything to the persuasion of these persons that a man who speaks to the conscience is " a teacher sent from God;" while by all others, either his power would be ascribed to an evil source, or his words perverted to suit prevailing false beliefs. I may here instance the fact that there are persons in our day who

* Emerson's Poems.

suppose the conversion of the Apostle Paul to have been miraculously effected, who at the same time think they find presented in his Epistle to the Romans a view of God as dealing with His creatures in a way they feel to be unjust. Will it be contended that moral benefit is in this case derived from belief in the miracle?

C.

Page 14, line 8-" self-love."

I would fain make it clearly understood that my justification of self-love rests on an exalted conception of the attributes of the soul. God-like in its nature, its "tender mercies are over all his works ;" and its interests bound up with the interests of humanity. As Genius is characterized by sympathy with all sentient life, so to the soul, in her freed state, the real welfare and integrity of individual human beings is dear and sacred; whereas, fettered within enthusiasm for humanity, we can sacrifice the righteous claims of individuals to the supposed welfare of a community, a principle of action which, once admitted, may eventually sanction the injustice, inhumanity, and impolicy of atrocities like the auto-da-fé; the worst outrages of the Reign of Terror; or the ready sacrifice of strict justice on the part of white men in dealing with black; if bodily safety only seems to be endangered.