"You are eloquently severe; but, my dear Sir, you may spare your severity, as it is not likely that I shall ever make the attempt, and less likely that I should succeed, were I vain, or, to quote your own language, wanton and cruel enough to do it. I willingly admit that Christianity has done some good, but you must allow that she has done some evil; and it is but fair to balance the one against the other, to see which preponderates. If she has promoted peace in one country, she has planned massacres in others; if she has blessed one family, she has introduced discord and division into others; and if there are a few solitary individuals animated by her promises of mercy, there is a larger number who tremble under the awful denunciations of her vengeance." "Her promises of mercy are addressed to all, and all are invited to receive the blessings which she is willing to bestow; but if they disdainfully reject them, and treat her message of grace with contempt, she turns away, and announces their approaching doom; and she does this in a tone, and with a lofty majesty of speech, which often makes the most daring quail before her. But why do they tremble, if they believe she has no power to punish? Your other charges against her I will meet by a quotation from a book[14] which I wish you would peruse, and which I shall be happy to present to you:-- "That men calling themselves Christians have persecuted others with unrelenting cruelty, and have shed rivers of innocent blood, is but too true. Did Christianity countenance this conduct, it would merit unqualified reprobation. But far from such a disposition, it forbids all violence and injury to be employed in its defence. Christianity never shed a drop of its enemies' blood since the day that Christ died on the cross; but it has been lavish of its own. It never forged a chain to bind a heretic or an adversary, nor erected a prison to immure him. Christianity never dipped her pen in tears of blood, to write a penal law denouncing vengeance on infidels. She never made her bitterest foe heave a groan, from any bodily suffering inflicted by her hands. Her only weapons of offence and defence are truth and prayer. She returns good for evil, and blessing for cursing.