"It has not escaped me,--I remember it well; but it seems to have escaped you, that it is a very transparent sophism. For what is it but a pretence that the Christian in general is confident enough of his virtue to think that he has not been sufficiently well treated, and that his Creator and Judge cannot do less than make amends for his injustice, by giving him compensation in another world?" "And is not that the true statement of the case?" "I imagine not; whether men be Christians or otherwise. The generality, when they reason upon this subject, (you and I, for example, at this very moment,) not at all considering the aspect of such a day upon themselves; how much they will lose if there be none; perhaps the bulk would wish that it could be proved that it would never come! It has been from a wish to escape great speculative perplexities, connected with the divine administration, and not in relation to man's deserts, that the question has been argued. When dictated by other feelings, the conviction of a future state has been quite as generally the utterance of remorse and fear, the response of an accusing conscience, as of hope and aspiration; and derives, perhaps, a terrible significance from that circumstance. But it has certainly not been, in the Christian, the result of any absurd expectation of virtues to be rewarded, or rights to be redressed. As to the Christian, though he feels that he would not, and dare not, go to the divine tribunal with any such absurd plea as Mr. Newman is pleased to put into his mouth,--though he cannot impeach the divine goodness,--he none the less feels that that goodness, if this scene be all, is open to very grievous impeachment in relation to millions who have suffered much, and done no wrong, and to multitudes more who have inflicted infinite wrong, and suffered next to nothing; and they would fain, if they could, get over difficulties which Mr. Newman chooses, from the mere exigencies of his theology, to represent as no difficulties at all. To escape them or to solve them is the thing principally in the minds of those who contend for a day of recompense; not the imaginary compensation of individual wrongs. I do contend that, if this world be all, the divine administration in many points is more hopelessly opposed to our moral instincts, and to all our notions of equity and benevolence, than any thing on which you spiritualists are accustomed to justify your censure of Scripture. You ought, as Harrington says, to go further." ____