True magnanimity, it seems to me, must look far outside of a man’s own lot, of his past share of life’s feast, and his readiness now to rise from it satisfied, and must take a wide survey of the lives (so far as they can be known or guessed) of all other men,--of the poverty-stricken, the savage, the ignorant, the diseased, the enslaved, the sin-degraded,--and attain the conclusion that for _these_ also, as well as for himself, life on earth has been sufficient good, and none other need be asked or desired before he can complacently speak of the _joy_ of abandoning faith in God and immortality. “I have had a noble share of life, and I desire no more,” is an expression of personal sentiment which may or may not be right and fitting on the assumed hypothesis. But to join to such expression of individual contentment no word of regret for the closing in of all hope to the suffering millions of our race who have _not_ had “noble” shares of life, and who do, with yearning hunger, desire more than has ever fallen to their lot,--this is, as it seems to me, the reverse of magnanimity. This is littleness and selfishness almost as bad as that of the bigots whom these Atheists abhor, who rejoice to expect heaven for themselves, while leaving thousands of their brethren to perdition. It might be pardonable in one brought up to believe in hell, and who hurriedly leaped to the doctrine of annihilation from that intolerable yoke, and cried, “Let us all perish together rather than that hideous doom overtake a single creature!” Such a choice would be generous and worthy. But when a woman who probably never, at any period of her life, believed in the eternal perdition of a soul, proclaims herself enraptured at the joy of finding out that there is neither a God to protect the weak, nor, finally, any holiness or happiness beyond the grave,--then, I repeat, this is _not_ magnanimity, but gigantic selfishness. Let us think a little what it would signify to mankind to give up God and heaven,--that is, the _belief_ in God and heaven; for--God be praised!--it rests with no philosophic school to put out the sun or prevent the morning from breaking, but only to _blind our eyes to them_.