e
guilty. Theologians may rest complacently in such a conclusion; to
unprejudiced persons, it appears to be the clearest illustration of the
futility of their theories. Free thought declines to call suffering a
punishment; but it admits and turns to account the undoubted fact, that
men are so closely connected, that every injury inflicted upon one is
inevitably propagated to others. If morality be the science of
minimizing human misery, to say that sin brings suffering, is merely to
express an identical proposition. The lesson, however, remains for us
that we should look beyond our petty, personal interests, because no
act can be merely personal. The stone which we throw spreads widening
circles to all eternity, and to realize that fact is to intensify the
sense of responsibility; but the same doctrine translated into the
theological dialect becomes shocking or "mysterious."

Finally, we are to love our brothers as Christ loved us. That, truly, is
an excellent doctrine, but translated into the theological, does it not
lose half its efficacy? Love them that are of the household is the more
natural corollary from the Christian tenets than love all mankind.
People sometimes express surprise that the mild doctrines of
Christianity should be pressed into the service of persecution. What
more natural? "We love you," says the theologian to the heathen, "but
still you are children of the devil. We love men, but the human heart is
desperately wicked. We love your souls, but we hate your bodies. We love
you as brothers; but then God, who so loved the world as to give His Son
to die for it, has left the vast majority to follow their own road to
perdition, and given to us a monopoly of truth and grace. We can only
follow His example, and adore the mysterious dispensations of
Providence."

"Ah!" replies a different school, "that is indeed a blasphemous and
hideous doctrine. We will not presume to divide the human from the
divine. God is the father of all men; His grace is confined to no sect
or creed. His revelation is made to the universal human heart as well as
to a select number of prophets and apostles. He is known in the order of
nature as well as by miracles. The body has been created by Him as well
as the soul, and all instincts are of heavenly origin and require
cultivation not extirpation."

Whether this doctrine is reconcilable with Christianity is a question
not to be discussed here. It certainly does not imply those f