--I have just been reading a labored and foolish attempt to prove that Abel was accepted because he offered animals to God, and that Cain was rejected because he offered the fruits of the ground. There is no end to the nonsense that can be talked and written on religious subjects. Here is a man from whom one expected instruction and guidance, wasting his great powers in worse than idleness. It is a foolish and a dangerous thing to hang the doctrine of reconciliation or redemption on a slender hook, when there are strong ones plenty to hang it on. But it is not the _Christian_ doctrine of redemption for which Mr. W. labors so zealously, but a theory, a crotchet, an invention of the elders. The doctrine itself requires no labored proof, no doubtful criticisms, no learned or unlearned inquiry into Greek and Hebrew etymologies. It lies on the surface of the sacred page. "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." "He died the just for the unjust, to bring us to God." "He died for all, that they who live should henceforth live not unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again." These theorists make Christianity disgusting by their metaphysical vanities, and their outlandish jargon. The idea that it is necessary for me to believe that Abel understood the Christian doctrine of redemption, is monstrous. There is no proof that Abel know anything about it. The probabilities lean all the other way. It is a pity those self-satisfied theorizers have not something else to do, than to encumber religion and perplex good people by their miserable speculations. --There's another book, one thousand two hundred and fifty pages, by a man that had real talent, and that could preach well when he took in hand practical subjects, and who had the appearance of a good man, and nine-tenths of this work of his is mischievous trifling. The clown at a theatre, the mountebank on the stage, are not so badly employed as theological triflers, who darken counsel by words without knowledge. It is not in prayer only, but in preaching and writing, that men should be in God's fear, and let their words be few.