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commended itself to your state of mind." Emphatically so,” was the reply. "I was particularly struck with the exposition of one word in the text, freely.' The Greek term, dopɛav, you told us, carries 'grace' itself to the highest point in God's moral government." "Had you then any difficulty upon that subject?" inquired the minister.

"I have nothing but difficulty upon religion. From my infancy I have been taught to respect it, and all good men. But the more I think, the greater are my perplexities; so much so, that I am sometimes inclined to doubt, and almost deny, the existence of God."

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"That is not cherished, I hope," said the minister. "It is an unwelcome intrusion into some minds; especially inquiring minds. No doubt it is a subject fraught with certain difficulties. An inspired man once asked, Who, by searching, can find out God?" His researches brought him into the same position as the researches of men of science frequently conduct them. The more they inquire into the essence of things, the more deeply are they convinced that there are certain points beyond which they cannot penetrate. You do right to inquire into every religious matter; but as all our investigations into science or mental philosophy must be conducted by some fixed data, so our inquiries, when they turn upon religion, must be regulated by an infallible standard. Faith is founded upon the evidence of facts, and

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'Interrupting you, sir, let me ask, Am I bound to believe what I cannot understand ?”

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Assuredly not," said the minister.

"Evidence of facts' was my remark. Those facts may exist, without your being able to comprehend the mode of their existence. In revealed religion there are fewer difficulties than in natural religion."

"I have for a long time felt anxious upon the doctrines of Christianity. I want more evidence than I can obtain. Every step I take seems to throw me farther back, so that my mind is constantly tossed about with difficulties of one sort or another."

He was told not to expect every difficulty to pass away at one and the same moment. The great point will be to ascertain the source of the principal or germinating difficulty of the whole group. "I understood you to say, that the difficulty you experience about the divine existence was an uncherished difficulty."

"I hardly know," he replied. "I sometimes fear it is indulged."

"Let me ask, then, another question. Have you not a mental distrust of yourself? Is it not a fact, that in very

many instances, as soon as your mind has cleared itself of a difficulty, you call that very difficulty back, and almost fondly cling to it again ?" This inquiry elicited the remark

"Had you known me as many years as we have now been together minutes, you could not have fastened more explicitly upon the habit of my mind. I do doubt my own doubts; I even dispute sometimes my own convictions; so that I occasionally feel I am in great danger of quarrelling with my very conscientiousness itself."

"You at once obtain a clue to many of your difficulties. They are not so much real as self-induced. But like all other self-originating evils, they seek most tenaciously to retain the power they usurp. You are not constitutionally timid ?" asked the minister. "The disputatious tendencies of which you speak are restricted, or nearly so, to matters of religion, are they not ?"

"I love to find out difficulties in my professional engagements as well."

"That may be; but when you have mastered them once, you do not return to them ?"

"Not to the extent or the eagerness with which I recur to my religious doubts."

"Why do you act upon a different plan in respect of those ?" "I do not know, unless it is as an excuse for unbelief."

"Secret unbelief, you mean; for religious duties, I understand, you have observed. An external respect has been paid to the forms of Christianity, while an insidious but common foe has all the while been feasting itself at the expense of your happiness. You have had too much respect for religion to disown it, or to laugh it to scorn, or even to fling against it the inconsistencies of some of its professors; at the same time there has been coiled up within your own breast a fatal mischief-working power. You have been content to be dissatisfied. With religion you have not quarrelled as a whole, but whenever any religious truth has sought to gain access and influence over the mind, your mind has bowed it into one of those compartments, which serve the purpose of a storehouse of difficulties."

An expressive pause followed. At length he exclaimed,— "Am I wrong in this feeling? It is almost a settled thing with me, and therefore, if it be wrong, it ought the more determinately and immediately be detected. It is this. I have a solemn conviction that it is an awful thing to be separated from God. I am not afraid of punishment so much as of degradation. I know God is the greatest of beings, and that

to be with him hereafter must be the highest source of blessedness. But I feel that separation from him will be a dishonour done to my intellect." Checking himself for a moment, he afterwards went on to say;- "Here, perhaps, I am wrong again. It is pride which makes me feel it would be a mental degradation.

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"But what if it is not pride?" he was asked. To which he, with great emotion, replied, by asking,

"How shall I know it is not pride?"

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"By one simple rule-that of being willing to be with God upon the terms he himself has fixed, and from which he will never depart. He had a mighty purpose to answer in the gift of his Son, whose death was designed to bring us unto God.' The redemption that is in Christ Jesus' is offered freely, and must be accepted upon the same terms, and for the same purpose, as formed the original design. The intellect of which you speak must, as intellect, accept this redemption. It is no degradation to the loftiest intellect to accept as a boon that which, but for the grace of a higher intellect than its own, could never have been presented for its acceptance. And you will do well to remember, that a serious wrong is done to God and to Christ, when any mind, be it never so great, secretly insinuates that the degradation of intellect consequent upon its exclusion from fellowship with God commences and is completed after death. Before death takes effect upon the body, the soul itself is dead to God; and that is the degradation of intellect. Eternity is a continuation of our character, as well as the duration of our being."

"Pardon me, but may I ask, is not that sui juris?

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"It is not my own law, but that of heaven. Every one will undergo a trial for the deeds done in the body, good or bad.' You must believe in the popish dogma of purgatory, unless you admit that we carry along with us into the unseen state all that we were in the present state; and we thus carry all that we now are along with us, immediately and without interruption."

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Purgatory I repudiate; eternity I dread, if separated from

God."

"That if' involves momentous considerations, and I must deal faithfully with you, by adding, that that 'if' depends upon yourself. Let me ask, Do you feel any sympathy with God? Could you surrender your intellect to him? Would you feel it a degradation to be like unto him now?"

"That is too much for any mortal to expect this side eternity."

THE ENGLISH MONTHLY TRACT SOCIETY, 27, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON.

"Oh, no, it is not. A drop of the sea resembles the ocean in quality, though not in extent; and when by faith we receive Christ, we partake of his character, as well as participate in the benefits of his redemption."

An expressive silence ensued, The mental attention occasioned by these discussions had somewhat exhausted the strength of the barrister, who sat pondering upon their relation to his own character and prospects. During several interruptions which occurred, from the anxious visits of his sister and medical friend, he expressed his deep sense of the importance of the subjects brought under his consideration, and repeatedly referred to other points of collateral interest to his mind.

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Looking out of the window, which commanded a full view of Pendennis Castle, and the entrance into the harbour, he exclaimed, "How beautifully that vessel is entering; her sails full, her signals flying, and she seems hurrying to her anchorage !" The minister looked as well. "Ah! he exclaimed, many a heart will almost sink at the sight of one of those flags. That (pointing it out) is the signal expressive of her name; and the black flag, half-mast high, tells the melancholy fact that, since she left, some one of her crew has died at sea.' Watching her nearer approach into the inner harbour, it was ascertained that it was the packet returning from Buenos Ayres. The town, and especially the terrace, was in motion. Wives tremblingly looked out of their windows, anxious, if possible, to trace by the glass the form of their husbands, as they were generally to be seen walking on deck, or with their own glasses catching a view of their houses, at the point where it was usual to place some object, as soon as his family recognized his being "all well." Children rushed to the quays, anxious to catch a view as the vessel came gliding into the inner harbour. Boats, full of anxious relatives and friends, tarried about the spot where they knew she would let go her anchor; and when at last the rattling chain proclaimed the fact, that in a second or two she would "bring her face to the wind," they waited for the moment, and then rushed alongside. "Who's dead?" was the general cry. "The doctor; he's been dead two months."

On one of the quays stood a little girl. Her hair hung in graceful curls over a lovely countenance, which indicated how tenderly alive she was to the intimation the black flag had given. "Can you tell me, sir," she said, to a gentleman accustomed to visit at her father's house, and also accustomed to go alongside every packet on its return,-"Can you tell me, sir, who is dead? Did you speak to my papa? Is he quite well?

Are there many passengers ?" "Come with me, my dear, for I must see you home." Home they reached; but a messenger had anticipated them : the widow, who just three weeks before had given birth to her fifth child, had learned the heavy tidings, and was in a state of agony. Tears refused to relieve the heart; anguish marked every feature of her beautiful face. "Oh!" was all that she could utter, as the minister (for she and her husband belonged to the congregation) entered her chamber, and wept as he sat down by her bedside. Is it true? Am I indeed a widow, and this and my other babes orphans?"

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The day after had been fixed upon for a second interview with the barrister. As he received the minister at this second interview, he expressed pleasure at having learned that the packet was detained four or six days, and immediately went on to say, "I have thought much of our conversation yesterday; and that I might not forget many things I then learned, I have made notes of several matters." His countenance bore a somewhat more cheerful aspect: a mental quietude awaited him; for the mind was not yet settled down into peace. Assured that change of climate alone would preserve life, he yet feared that the hopes of his friends would not be realized; and though he had no constitutional dread of death, he yet regarded it with that peculiar solemnity of feeling with which a capacious and vigorous intellect fastens upon the undying realities of eternity.

He had read the third chapter of Romans with anxious inquiries. Among many others, he mentioned the difficulties he had encountered about the twentieth verse.

"Which law, the ceremonial or the moral, does the apostle mean, when he asserts that by deeds of law no flesh shall be justified?"

"The moral law."

"I thought it was the ceremonial, and that the apostle intended to expose the defects of the Mosaic law."

"He intended both. The ceremonial institutes of Moses were in themselves powerless, as are the ceremonial or ritual observances even of Christianity itself. The moral law exacted perfect obedience. For obedience is not merit."

"The moral law is that contained in the ten commandments ?"

"It is. The ten commandments are not, however, to be regarded as the origin of the moral law; they are what lawyers call a declaratory law, or an authoritative declaration of what the law had previously been, and actually was, at the time when those commands were made known. Sinai did not proclaim a new law. It had existed in Eden ages before

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