"Well, I am now going to prove that there is no logical force in your objection, and I will do this by one analogical fact, which will explain, and, I think, confirm the correctness of my meaning. Take, then, human friendship. Is the moral power of human friendship a fiction or a reality? Take the _look_ of friendship; is there no moral power in the movement and soft beaming of the eye, especially in the falling tear? Take the _countenance_ of friendship; is there no moral power in the bland and bewitching smile? Take the _bosom_ of friendship; is there no moral power in the suppressed groan or noiseless sigh? Take the _hand_ of friendship; is there no moral power in the hearty shake or gentle squeeze? Take the _tongue_ of friendship; is there no moral power in its expressions of sympathy, or its promises of fidelity? But, Sir, what _is_ this mystic power, which is known to act with such efficacy on the troubled and downcast spirit in the season of its perplexities and sorrows? Can you tell me _what it is, or how it acts_? It is a _mighty something_, which, like an invisible spirit of superhuman benignity, moves without a shape, speaks without a voice, passes through all resistances of doubt and misgivings without an effort, laying the throbbing heart of the anxious mourner at rest on its own impalpable bosom, where it enjoys the solace and the calm of sweet repose. Thus we have, in the common occurrences of every-day life, a philosophical defence of the moral efficacy of the power which the Scriptures ascribe to the atonement, even though we cannot define its exact nature, or explain the _modus_ of its actual operation. It is then, like the power of human friendship, a fact which evidence attests and which uniform experience confirms." "I am delighted that my scepticism has supplied to you such a tempting background for the beautiful sketching of the mystic power of friendship true to life, with which you have now favoured me. But you have overlooked one important fact, namely, that the human spirit is dependent on her physical senses for the transmission and reception of the power of friendship." "True, but only as the _medium_ of transmission and reception; and this fact supplies fresh evidence to prove, that while you are compelled to admit, on the evidence of consciousness and testimony, the power of friendship, you can neither explain nor conceive the nature of its influence, or the _modus_ of its operation. And it is to the same evidence I appeal in confirmation of the moral power of the atonement on the human spirit, and maintain that you have no moral, or even logical right to deny it, on the ground of my inability to give you all the explanations you may ask me for, when you yourself feel a similar inability to explain how it is that a self-evident friendship works so powerfully on the heart of sorrow and of perplexity."