150 WITNESSES. GEORGE CRABBE. This eminent poet of humble life, though an Episcopalian clergyman, was a Universalist. His heart and head outran his narrow creed. He said, long before his death: "We have, it seems, who teach, and doubtless well, Of a chastening, not awarding hell; Who are assured that an offended God A pleasing vision! could we thus be sure but who shall add it must? To the plain words and sense of Sacred Writ, But where it leaves me doubtful, I'm afraid To call conjecture to my reason's aid; Thy thoughts, thy ways, great God! are not as mine, And to thy MERCY I my soul resign." Dr. T. Southwood Smith tells us: * "I have a letter from a son of Crabbe, informing me that my treatise was his father's daily companion in the close of life, and that the poet declared on his death bed, that he had received *A. C. Thomas' Letters. more solace from that book than from all other human compositions." The book referred to is one of the best expositions of Universalism ever written. J. S. TAYLOR, ex In a recent work-Clouds and Sunshinepresses the prevailing sentiment of Modern Lit erature: "A. Well, if it be heresy to receive with reluctance the doctrine of eternal punishments, I must plead guilty to the charge. I know the difficulties of the case, my friends. There are texts, certainly, that seem to proclaim that doctrine, with terrible clearness; but I confess, I gladly run away from them, and take refuge in others, that speak a language far more comfortable and encouraging, and far more in accordance, as it appears to me, both with the Creator's omnipotence and goodness. No, no; I cannot believe that God has doomed any creatures of his, in any part of his dominions, to endless misery. That every sin must have its attendant sorrow; that the penalty of every transgression must be paid to the full; that no sophistry or ingenuity can evade that payment; that guilt and wretchedness still abound on earth, and in other worlds, and that they will long continue to impair their beauty and happiness, all these things who will presume to question? But that this sad history is to remain so forever, or that any star in the universe is destined to be the theatre of eternal suffering, or that any being exists in any part of it, so steeped in guilt and anguish (no, not Satan himself,) as to be beyond the redeeming love or healing power of the Creator, I no more believe it than I do that there is any intellect that can baffle God's wisdom, or any force that can resist his supremacy. Oh, no; on the contrary, I believe that in this mysterious, but divinely ordained conflict of good and evil, the powers of light, are, everywhere, slowly but surely gaining the ascendancy over the powers of darkness, and that it will continue to be so, even unto the perfect day; yes, that perfect day, wherein all these blessed victories over sin and ignorance shall have been consummated, these transformations completed, and no solitary stain of folly, guilt, or grief, be left to mar the lustre of the Universe. But, my friends, I will no farther tax your kindness. Let me then, in conclusion, once more declare my faith in this same doctrine of perfection, unshaken as it is, by all that you have urged against it; alike in that perfection appropriate to earth, to be won and kept by man, in this, the first stage of his schooling, and in that other and inconceivably glorious perfection, that is to be developed in the blessed worlds to come." JAMES MARTINEAU. This learned and brilliant man speaks as follows in the Westminster Review for April, 1850 : "In their mismanagement-as ever happens when prophecy is dead and priesthood lives This is Christianity becomes a threat: "if you do not use our magic and believe our mysteries, without doubt you shall perish everlastingly." Nor is this the accidental feature of some one school of theology; it is a common character in the teachings of Tractarian and of Evangelical, who may quarrel about the means of grace, but can shake hands over the eternal wrath. From this the whole economy which they profess to administer is nothing but a contrivance for escape. the fundamental postulate from which the whole scheme is developed, which dictates all its language, and gives meaning to all its forms. The charming away of this infinite curse is the very problem which the Church proposes to solve, and which is held to justify her existence. She is not there to make good citizens and good men, to give sanctity to the laws of obligation, and hope to sorrow and pure affection; but distinctly to wash out of them a physical poison, and save them from the tortures of an inexhaustible vengeance. And this tremendous end she refuses to accomplish, except on conditions which the wisest may be unable to trust, and the most faithful may scruple to accept. For who can say that goodness may not doubt the sacraments which Clarkson and Elizabeth Fry disowned, and purity of heart reject the dogmas which Arnold and Channing never held? Either what the Church insists on as essential are not essentials, and her commission to dispense them comes to nought; or some of the best men and most saintly of women are among the damned. We question whether any one professing such a fable as this, is to be believed upon his own word. . He professes a psychological impossibility. No man who would hesitate to put Channing on the wheel, and object to burn Mrs. Fry, feeling that his reluctance comes from a good heart, can believe that God will do these things on a scale more terrible. In It requires indeed no great insight into character to discover, that any reality in this eternal curse and penalty has for some time ceased. proposing to rescue men from it, the Church makes an offer which no one cares to accept. Have our lay readers ever practically met with a person - not under remorse for actual heinous sin, who wanted to be delivered from eternal torment? If ever a man does really apprehend such a thing for himself, and wring his hands and fix his eye in wild despair, how do we deal with him? Do we praise the clearness of his moral diagnosis and the logic of his orthodoxy? do we refer him to the font of baptism, or the keys for absolution? No, we send him to the physician rather than to the priest; we put cold sponges on his head, and bid his friends look after him. Nor does this doctrine any better bear application to the persons around us than to ourselves. If we sometimes act and speak by it, we never feel and rarely think of it. Who ever knew a mother to despair of her unbaptized and departed child? Let it only be considered what is the scene, what is the perspective, before her imagination, if she be at once sound and sincere in the faith; and it must be owned that even her most passionate grief never rises to the pitch of such piercing shrieks as she would hurl into the place of unutterable agony. The whole con |