one,
Will rive the hills and swim the sea,
And, like thy shadow, follow thee.

Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on
Compensation: for it seemed to me when very young, that on this
subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the
preachers taught. The documents,[94] too, from which the doctrine is
to be drawn, charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always
before me, even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, the
bread in our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm, and the
dwelling-house, greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence
of character, the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me,
also, that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present
action of the soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition,
and so the heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal
love, conversing with that which he knows was always and always must
be, because it really is now. It appeared, moreover, that if this
doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright
intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would
be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey that
would not suffer us to lose our way.

I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church.
The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the
ordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed that
judgment is not executed in this world; that the wicked are
successful; that the good are miserable;[95] and then urged from
reason and from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in
the next life. No offense appeared to be taken by the congregation at
this doctrine. As far as I could observe, when the meeting broke up,
they separated without remark on the sermon.

Yet what was the import of this teaching? What did the preacher mean
by saying that the good are miserable in the present life? Was it that
houses and lands, offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by
unprincipled men, whilst the saints are poor and despised; and that a
compensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving them the
like gratifications another day,--bank stock and doubloons,[96]
venison and champagne? This must be the compensation intended; for
what else? Is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise? to
love and serve men? Why, that they can