Somewhat bewildered by these unexpected, and, as I think, exaggerated protests, I appealed to Mr. Gladstone, whose kindness in these matters had for {62} years been unfailing to me. My letter appears to have given him the mistaken impression that I was venturing on my own account into the polemical arena. Hence his reply, cautioning me against an undertaking so obviously beyond my powers. His letter is most important, and I am glad to be able to publish so weighty a judgment on the most serious of all subjects, by the greatest Englishman of his century. Here it is:-- HOTEL CAP MARTIN, MENTONE, Feb. 13th, 1895. MY DEAR MADAME NOVIKOFF, I am sorry you have not a better adviser, but I will discharge as fairly and frankly as I can the part which you desire me to undertake. I do not see why the word "_heresy_" should be flung at you. Heresy is a very grave matter, and should not be charged except in cases where not only the subject matter is grave, but also the whole authority of the Church or Christian community has been brought to bear. I conceive, however, that the question of Jewish opinion on a future state, as opened in the Old Testament, is a question quite open to discussion. I have myself been a good deal engaged latterly in examining the question of a future state, and have had occasion to touch more or less upon Jewish opinion. The subject is very interesting, but is also large and complex, and I would advise you as strongly as I may against publishing anything upon it without a previous examination proportioned in some degree to the character of the {63} subject. How can you safely enter upon it without some attention to the researches and the opinions of the writers who have examined it? My own state of information is by no means so advanced as to warrant the expression of confident and final conclusions. But I think there are some things that are clearly enough to be borne in mind. We cannot but notice the wise reserve with which the Creeds treat the subject of the future state. After the period when they were framed, Christian opinion came gradually, I believe, to found itself upon an assumption due to the Greek philosophy, and especially to Plato, namely, that of the natural immortality of the human soul. And this opinion (which I am not much inclined to accept) supplies us, so to speak, with spectacles through which we look back upon the Hebrew ideas conveyed in the Old Testament. Another view of the matter is, that man was not naturally immortal, but _immortalíable_. That had he not sinned, he would have attained regularly to immortality; but after his eating from the tree of knowledge he was prevented, as the text informs us, from feeding on the tree of life, and the subject of his immortality was thus thrown into vague and obscure distance.