lation, which, however, is at least as rational a solution of it
as any other. A _material_ resurrection seems strange and even
absurd, except for purposes of punishment; and all punishment which
is to _revenge_ rather than _correct_ must be _morally wrong_; and
_when the world is at an end_, what moral or warning purpose _can_
eternal tortures answer? Human passions have probably disfigured the
divine doctrines here;--but the whole thing is inscrutable.

* * * * *

"It is useless to tell me _not_ to _reason_, but to _believe._ You
might as well tell a man not to wake, but _sleep._ And then to
_bully_ with torments, and all that! I cannot help thinking that the
_menace_ of hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of
inhuman humanity make villains.

* * * * *

"Man is born _passionate_ of body, but with an innate though secret
tendency to the love of good in his main-spring of mind. But, God
help us all! it is at present a sad jar of atoms.

* * * * *

"Matter is eternal, always changing, but reproduced, and, as far as
we can comprehend eternity, eternal; and why not _mind_? Why should
not the mind act with and upon the universe, as portions of it act
upon, and with, the congregated dust called mankind? See how one man
acts upon himself and others, or upon multitudes! The same agency, in
a higher and purer degree, may act upon the stars, &c. ad infinitum.

* * * * *

"I have often been inclined to materialism in philosophy, but could
never bear its introduction into _Christianity_, which appears to me
essentially founded upon the _soul_. For this reason Priestley's
Christian Materialism always struck me as deadly. Believe the
resurrection of the _body_, if you will, but _not without_ a _soul_.
The deuce is in it, if after having had a soul, (as surely the
_mind_, or whatever you call it, _is,_) in this world, we must part
with it in the _next_, even for an immortal materiality! I own my
partiality for _spirit_.

* * * * *

"I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day, as if there was some
association between an internal approach to greater light and purity
and the kindler of this dark lantern of our external existence.

* * * * *

"The night is also a religious concern, and even more so when I
viewed the moon