Books have been written to exhibit the difficulties of (what priests choose to call) Infidelity, and without doubt unbelief has its difficulties. But, according to a universally recognised rule of philosophising, of two difficulties we are in all cases to choose the least. From a rule so palpably just no one can reasonably depart, and the Universalist, while freely admitting a great difficulty on his own side, is satisfied there can be demonstrated an infinitely greater difficulty on the side of his opponents. The Universalist labours to convince mankind they are not warranted by the general course of Nature in assigning to it a Cause; inasmuch as it is more in accordance with experience to suppose Nature the uncaused cause, than to imagine, as errorists do, that there is an uncaused cause of Nature. Theologians ask, who created Nature? without adducing satisfactory evidence that Nature _was_ created, and without reflecting that if it is difficult to believe Nature self-existent, it is much more difficult to believe some self-existent Super-nature, capable of producing it. In their anxiety to get rid of a natural difficulty, they invent a supernatural one, and accuse Universalists of 'wilful blindness,' and 'obstinate deafness,' for not choosing so unphilosophic a mode of explaining universal mystery. The rule of philosophising just adverted to--that rule which forbids us, in any case, to chose the greater of two difficulties--is of immense importance, and should be carefully considered by every one anxious to arrive at correct conclusions with respect to theology. For if believers in God do depart from that rule--if their belief necessarily involve its violation--to persist in such belief is to persist in what is clearly opposed to pure reason. Now, it has been demonstrated, so far as words can demonstrate any truth whatever, that the difficulty of him who believes Nature never had an author, is infinitely less than the difficulty of him who believes it had a cause itself uncaused. In the 'Elements of Materialism,' an unequal, but still admirable work by Dr. Knowlton, a well-known American writer, this question of comparative difficulty is well handled.