_For my Book on the Relations of Christianity to Man._--S. T. C. cites Jeremy Taylor, etc., for horrible passages on the gloomy state of the chances for virtuous Pagans. S. T. C. in a more liberal generation is shocked; and of course in his readers as in himself secretly, he professes more liberal ideas. Aye, but how is he entitled to these ideas? For, on further consideration, it is not Cicero only, or Epictetus only, that would suffer under this law of Christianity viewed in its reagency, but also Abraham, David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hezekiah. Because, how could they benefit by a Redeemer not yet revealed--nay, by a Redeemer not even existing? For it is not the second person in the Trinity--not He separately and abstractedly--that is the Redeemer, but that second person incarnated. St. Paul apparently wished to smuggle this tremendous question into a fraudulent solution, by mixing up Abraham (with others pre-Christian and Christian) into the long array of those whose _Faith_ had saved them. But faith in whom? General faith in God is not the thing, it is faith in Jesus Christ; and we are solemnly told in many shapes that no other name was given on earth through which men could be delivered. Indeed, if not, how is the Messiah of such exclusive and paramount importance to man? The Messiah was as yet (viz., in Abraham's time) a prophecy--a dim, prophetic outline of one who _should_ be revealed. But if Abraham and many others could do without Him, if this was a dispensable idea, how was it in any case, first or last, indispensable? Besides, recur to the theory of Christianity. Most undeniably it was this, that neither of the two elements interested in man could save him; not God; He might have power, but His purity revolted. Power (or doubtfully so), but no will. Not man--for he, having the will, had no power. God was too holy; manhood too _un_holy. Man's gifts, applicable, but insufficient. God's sufficient, but inapplicable. Then came the compromise. How if man could be engrafted upon God? Thus only, and by such a synthesis, could the ineffable qualities of God be so co-ordinated with those of man.