Let no one distrust the doctrine of development by reason of its supposed extravagance of pretension who has not duly considered to what a sublime of moral beauty the united hideousness and absurdity of Calvinism may give birth. In that Puritan society of New England of which Mrs. Beecher Stowe has given so singularly interesting an account in her 'Minister's Wooing,' and among whose members it was an universal article of belief that the bulk of mankind are created for the express purpose of being consigned to everlasting flames, there are said to have been not a few enthusiasts in whom a self-concentrating creed begat the very quintessence of self-devotion. 'As a gallant soldier renounces life and personal aims in the cause of his king and country, and holds himself ready to be drafted for a forlorn hope, to be shot down, or help to make a bridge of his mangled body, over which the more fortunate shall pass to victory and glory,' so among the early descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers many an one 'regarded himself as devoted to the King Eternal, ready in his hands to be used to illustrate and build up an eternal commonwealth, either by being sacrificed as a lost spirit, or glorified as a redeemed one; ready to throw, not merely his mortal life, but his immortality even, into the forlorn hope, to bridge, with a never-dying soul, the chasm over which white-robed victors should pass to a commonwealth of glory and splendour, whose vastness should dwarf the misery of all the lost to an infinitesimal.' And while by many the idea of suffering everlasting pains for the glory of God, and the good of being in general, was thus contemplated with equanimity, there were some few for whom the idea of so suffering for the good of others dearer than themselves would have been greeted with positive exultation. 'And don't I care for your soul, James?' exclaims Mary Scudder to her lover. 'If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give them to you, I would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, "I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen," and he went on to show how we must be willing to give up even our own salvation, if necessary, for the good of others. People said it was a hard doctrine, but I could feel my way through it. Yes, I would give my soul for yours. I wish I could.' Now we must on no account permit admiration of Miss Scudder's transcendent generosity in desiring to make this exchange blind us to the fatal effect on social happiness which, if such exchange were possible, the prevalence of a disposition to make it could not fail to have. If Calvinism were true instead of blasphemous, if God were really the Moloch it represents Him, and if, moreover, Moloch were indifferent as to which of his offspring were cast into the fire, caring only that the prescribed number of victims should be forthcoming in full tale, nothing can be conceived more likely to prove an encouragement to