It can hardly be doubted that the kind of language which Protestants of a certain class have been, and still are, in the habit of using, about the "Scheme of Redemption," constitutes a most serious stumbling-block in the way of many an earnest spirit. There are few preachers probably, and few congregations now,--in the Establishment at any rate,--who would not revolt against the hideous calmness with which Jonathan Edwards contemplates the "little spiders" dropping off into the flames. But a great deal of mischief remains to be undone. Those who are acquainted with the biographies of Shelley, of James and of John Stuart Mill, know well what effect the fierce doctrines of Calvinism have produced upon minds which for the issues of morality and, surely, even of religion, were "finely touched." And who can tell what horror and indignation have been wrought in some minds, what agonies of despair in others, who, when at last the blessed work of repentance began to stir within them, and they turned their eyes for comfort to the cross, were met by the terrible warning that none but the select few can call God their Father, and that in all probability their own eternal tortures were decreed before ever they entered the world? The other point to which I must briefly advert is Mr. Ruskin's protest against the use of words which imply--which leave the least possibility of hoping for--a mechanical absolution, a pardon of sins that have not been abandoned. I do not indeed think that the reproach of using such language falls upon those who are fond of the title of priests alone, for the doctrines of Calvinism are far more liable to abuse. Nor do I think that any preaching of our clergy on this subject can be said to have "turned our cities into loathsome centres of fornication and covetousness." But here, if anywhere, we ought never to forget the danger of even seeming to set Theology against Reason and Conscience, of allowing the least pretext for thinking that a mere intellectual assent to abstract truths on the one hand, a mere acceptance of ecclesiastical ordinances on the other, can wipe away sins; or that a heart unpurified by charity and obedience, could be at rest even in the kingdom of heaven. _From the Rev._ CANON COOPER, _Vicar of Grange-over-Sands_. Thank God, all good men are broader and better than their creed,--better and broader, I mean, than those parts of their creed which they insist upon most, because they distinguish them from other people. (These distinguishing points are always of the least importance, in my opinion.) And with my experience of sermons for nearly forty years (for I was very early "called upon to hear sermons"), I am not conscious of such universal omissions on the part of the "priests" of the Church of England as Mr. Ruskin affirms. The universality of the _love_ of God the _Father_, embracing even the "_wicked rich_" as well as the "wicked poor," is largely dwelt upon by all "schools."