"Now, Sir, to be candid; is not the terror you felt, when listening to the sermon we heard, and the abiding recollection of it, something like an unconscious homage instinctively paid to the positive reality of the Christian faith? for we can hardly suppose that you would invest a mere fiction with such power of impression." "Why, no; I can scarcely admit that. My idea is, that my present feelings are merely the lingering influences of early religious training, with its accompanying associations; and we all know that such influences may subsist long after we have been led to form different opinions in our maturer years." "They live to admonish and to warn, as well as to chastise. There _may_ be a _wrath to come_. This you must admit, simply because you do not know there is not; nor can you know, unless God is pleased to tell you so. _Hence your scepticism needs a Divine revelation to sustain it_--mere disbelief goes for nothing in settling such a question." "Well, I know there is great difficulty, and sometimes an impossibility, in proving a negative; but one thing is absolutely certain--I cannot compel myself to believe what you believe, any more than you can compel yourself to disbelieve what I disbelieve." "My belief has evidence to sustain it; but your disbelief has none. And while your disbelief is accompanied by a feeling of uneasiness and perplexity, my faith exerts a soothing influence, which keeps my mind in perfect peace." "Well, I admit that your faith does more for you than my disbelief does for me; but I cannot believe what you do without impeaching both the wisdom and the beneficence of the Deity. In other words, the Deity must sink in my admiration before I can admit the Divine origin of Christianity." "But how so?" "The eloquent preacher whom we heard last evening, when discoursing on the expression in his text, _he was believed on in the world_, advanced two distinct propositions, which he endeavoured to sustain by arguments taken from your Scriptures. The first was, that _there is salvation for the chief of sinners if they believe in Christ and trust in him_. You believe and are safe, and are happy because you expect to be saved. Now, I have no objection to advance against this; because I know that faith, or trust in Him, does produce these moral effects on true believers. But my nature revolts against his second proposition, which was, _that none can be saved who do not believe in Christ, and trust in him for salvation_." "In sustaining those propositions the preacher said--and there is great force in the remark--that we can have no assurance that any will be saved but by a Divine testimony in proof of it; and that if it please God to limit the exercise of his saving power to one prescribed method, our objections against it will be altogether unavailing."