ater ones. He might certainly challenge earth or heaven,
things present or things to come, to swerve him from this grand
allegiance.

But it is to be conceded, that these systems, so admirable in relation
to the energy, earnestness, and acuteness of their authors, when
received as absolute truth, and as a basis of actual life, had, on minds
of a certain class, the effect of a slow poison, producing life-habits
of morbid action very different from any which ever followed the simple
reading of the Bible. They differ from the New Testament as the living
embrace of a friend does from his lifeless body, mapped out under the
knife of the anatomical demonstrator;--every nerve and muscle is there,
but to a sensitive spirit there is the very chill of death in the
analysis.

All systems that deal with the infinite are, besides, exposed to danger
from small, unsuspected admixtures of human error, which become deadly
when carried to such vast results. The smallest speck of earth's dust,
in the focus of an infinite lens, appears magnified among the heavenly
orbs as a frightful monster.

Thus it happened, that, while strong spirits walked, palm-crowned, with
victorious hymns, along these sublime paths, feebler and more sensitive
ones lay along the track, bleeding away in life-long despair. Fearful to
them were the shadows that lay over the cradle and the grave. The mother
clasped her babe to her bosom, and looked with shuddering to the awful
coming trial of free agency, with its terrible responsibilities and
risks, and, as she thought of the infinite chances against her beloved,
almost wished it might die in infancy. But when the stroke of death
came, and some young, thoughtless head was laid suddenly low, who can
say what silent anguish of loving hearts sounded the dread depths of
eternity with the awful question, _Where_?

In no other time or place of Christendom have so fearful issues been
presented to the mind. Some church interposed its protecting shield; the
Christian born and baptized child was supposed in some wise rescued from
the curse of the fall, and related to the great redemption,--to be a
member of Christ's family, and, if ever so sinful, still infolded in
some vague sphere of hope and protection. Augustine solaced the dread
anxieties of trembling love by prayers offered for the dead, in times
when the Church above and on earth presented itself to the eye of the
mourner as a great assembly with one accord lifting i