corpse home, engaged a Universalist preacher, and, on the next day having heard this man say that there was no place in the wide universe of God without hope, and that her son would finally stand among the redeemed, this mother laid her son away, put flowers upon his grave, and was satisfied. _Question_. What have you to say to the charge that you are preaching the doctrine of despair and hopelessness, when they have the comforting assurances of the Christian religion to offer? _Answer_. All I have to say is this: If the Christian religion is true, as commonly preached--and when I speak of Christianity, I speak of the orthodox Christianity of the day--if that be true, those whom I have loved the best are now in torment. Those to whom I am most deeply indebted are now suffering the vengeance of God. If this religion be true, the future is of no value to me. I care nothing about heaven, unless the ones I love and have loved are there. I know nothing about the angels. I might not like them, and they might not like me. I would rather meet there the ones who have loved me here--the ones who would have died for me, and for whom I would have died; and if we are to be eternally divided --not because we differed in our views of justice, not because we differed about friendship or love or candor, or the nobility of human action, but because we differed in belief about the atonement or baptism or the inspiration of the Scriptures--and if some of us are to be in heaven, and some in hell, then, for my part, I prefer eternal sleep. To me the doctrine of annihilation is infinitely more consoling, than the probable separation preached by the orthodox clergy of our time. Of course, even if there be a God, I like persons that I know, better than I can like him--we have more in common--I know more about them; and how is it possible for me to love the infinite and unknown better than the ones I know? Why not have the courage to say that if there be a God, all I know about him I know by knowing myself and my friends--by knowing others? And, after all, is not a noble man, is not a pure woman, the finest revelation we have of God--if there be one? Of what use is it to be false to ourselves? What moral quality is there in theological pretence? Why should a man say that he loves God better than he does his wife or his children or his brother or his sister or his warm, true friend? Several ministers have objected to what I said about my friend Mr. Mills, on the ground that it was not calculated to console the living. Mr. Mills was not a Christian. He denied the inspiration of the Scriptures. He believed that restitution was the best repentance, and that, after all, sin is a mistake. He was not a believer in total depravity, or in the atonement. He denied these things. He was an unbeliever. Now, let me ask, what consolation could a Christian minister have given to his family? He could have said to the widow and the orphans,