en outward and inward
religion, become two further articles in what I have called the preamble
of her divine commission.

Such truths as these she vigorously reiterates, and pertinaciously
inflicts upon mankind; as to such she observes no half-measures, no
economical reserve, no delicacy or prudence. "Ye must be born again," is
the simple, direct form of words which she uses after her Divine Master:
"your whole nature must be re-born; your passions, and your affections,
and your aims, and your conscience, and your will, must all be bathed in
a new element, and reconsecrated to your Maker,--and, the last not the
least, your intellect." It was for repeating these points of her
teaching in my own way, that certain passages of one of my Volumes have
been brought into the general accusation which has been made against my
religious opinions. The writer has said that I was demented if I
believed, and unprincipled if I did not believe, in my own statement,
that a lazy, ragged, filthy, story-telling beggar-woman, if chaste,
sober, cheerful, and religious, had a prospect of heaven, such as was
absolutely closed to an accomplished statesman, or lawyer, or noble, be
he ever so just, upright, generous, honourable, and conscientious,
unless he had also some portion of the divine Christian graces;--yet I
should have thought myself defended from criticism by the words which
our Lord used to the chief priests, "The publicans and harlots go into
the kingdom of God before you." And I was subjected again to the same
alternative of imputations, for having ventured to say that consent to
an unchaste wish was indefinitely more heinous than any lie viewed apart
from its causes, its motives, and its consequences: though a lie, viewed
under the limitation of these conditions, is a random utterance, an
almost outward act, not directly from the heart, however disgraceful and
despicable it may be, however prejudicial to the social contract,
however deserving of public reprobation; whereas we have the express
words of our Lord to the doctrine that "whoso looketh on a woman to lust
after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." On
the strength of these texts, I have surely as much right to believe in
these doctrines which have caused so much surprise, as to believe in
original sin, or that there is a supernatural revelation, or that a
Divine Person suffered, or that punishment is eternal.

Passing now from what I have called the