a large number of the Unitarian church in America, our own distinct denomination, and that great company included in other denominations, according to JOHN FOSTER and others, especially in the Episcopal church, who deride the idea of Endless Misery, making more, it is believed, numerically, morally and intellectually, than can be found against the sentiment; all assure us with voices not to be contradicted, that this plant shall grow till it fills the earth, and that the leaves of the tree shall yet heal the nations.

The first passage we present is from

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

The following extract of a letter from the sage who

'Snatched fire from heaven, and the sceptre from tyrants,'

Whitfield, and was Rev. VARNUM LINIt will be seen that

was addressed to Rev. Geo.
communicated to me by the
COLN, of Andover, Mass.
he cherished the Christian's hope.

"You will see, in this, my notion of good works, that I am far from expecting to merit Heaven by them. By Heaven we understand a state of happiness infinite in degree, and eternal in duration. I can do nothing to deserve such a reward. He that for giving a draught of water

to a thirsty person should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands compared with those who think they deserve Heaven for the little good they do on earth. For my part, I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, or the ambition to desire it, but content myself in submitting myself to the disposal of that God who made me, who has hitherto preserved and blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide that he will never make me miserable, and that the affliction I may AT ANY TIME SUFFER MAY TEND TO MY BENEFIT."

His daughter, at whose house he died, tells us that Franklin thought " no system in the Christian world was so well calculated to promote the interests of society, as the doctrine which showed a God reconciling a lapsed world unto himself." -See New Monthly Magazine-and Mirror, vol. ix. p. 208.

"Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure which is to last forever. His chair was ready first; and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniently start together, and why should you and I be grieved at this; since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him?"-Franklin on the Death of his Brother.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

Eminent as a philosopher, a metaphysician, and a poet, COLERIDGE never assented to the portrait of Him, whom in derision he called

who,

"That Deity, Accomplice Deity,'

'In the fierce jealousy of wakened wrath
Will go forth with our armies, and our fleets,
To scatter the red ruin on their foes.

O blasphemy! to mingle fiendish deeds
With blessedness.'

His soul was cheered with the sublime thought:

'There is one Mind, one omnipresent mind,
Omnific. His most holy name is Love.
Truth of subliming import! with the which
Who feeds and saturates his constant soul,
He from his small, particular orbit flies

With bless'd outstarting. From Himself he flies,
Stands in the Sun, and with no partial gaze
Views all creation; and he loves it all,
And blesses it, and calls it very good!
This is indeed to dwell with the Most High!
Cherubs and rapture-trembling seraphim
Can pass no nearer to the Almighty Throne.
"Tis the sublime of man,
Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!
This fraternizes man, this constitutes

Our charities and bearings. But 'tis God
Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole.'

He expresses the same idea in other words:

'He prayeth well, who loveth well,

Both man, and bird, and beast.'

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.'

It was the confidence caused by such thoughts that enabled him to pen the most beautiful description of silent prayer that ever was written :

'Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips, or bended knees;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to love compose,

In humble trust mine eyelids close,
With reverential resignation,

No wish conceived, no thought express'd!
Only a sense of supplication,

A sense o'er all my soul impress'd
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, everywhere,
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.'

'Believe thou, O my soul,

Life is a vision shadowy of truth:

And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave,
Shapes of a dream. The veiling clouds retire,
And lo! the Throne of the Redeeming God,
Forth flashing unimaginable day,

Wraps in one blaze, EARTH, HEAVEN, AND
DEEPEST HELL!'

Under the head of ROBERT SOUTHEY may be found a proper description of Calvinism, in some comments by Southey, on a letter from Whitfield to Wesley. It seems that Southey had apologized for Wesley's theory of Endless Misery, and

Coleridge, that deepest, subtlest, most wonderful mind England saw for a century, replied as follows:

'Dear and honored Southey! All this is very plausible; the picture is frightful, and a recoil is at first inevitable by any sane mind. But what have you to substitute? or, rather, what had Wesley, who still believed in everlasting (that is; endless) torments? for so he understood the word eternal. I boldly answer, and appeal to Taylor's letters on original sin, a mere paltry evasion; a quibble, (and one that is quite absurd when applied to an omniscience and omnipotence perpetually creative,) between decreeing and permitting. If any one, it should be a Spanish theologian to treat on this subject; for the Spaniards only combine depth with subtlety. I feel and I think as you do, Southey! How could it be otherwise? In this only I differ, that the controversy is between Whitfield and Wesley, and men like them. And it is not fair to take the question abstractedly from the total creed of both parties. Not simply, what is there in reprobation so horrible? To this you have returned the fit answer. But what is there in it that Mr. Wesley could with consistency affect horror at? Let him turn the broad road round before it comes to the everlasting fire lake, and THEN he may reprobate reprobation as loudly as he lists.* Till then, fuvete linguæ."

*ed est, permitting and foreordaining are logically the same.