you direct your attention, is, after all, a mere matter of speculation, and therefore why accept it with such a measure of assurance as to elevate it into a faith ?—or, at least, why not retain it as an esoteric sentiment, rather than promulgate it, with confidence, as an important truth for others? Indeed, truths, known to be such, are sometimes seen to work injurious practical effects, if too exclusively dwelt upon; as for instance, the doctrine of a power arbiter over free-will, too sedulously cherished, has a tendency to produce a sense of irresponsibility. So, since sin is such an awful evil, is it not safer to leave the future, with its dreadful consequences unpierced, as a vague and fearful warning, than to make any definite representations of the end of things? Moreover, is it not, at least, unphilosophical to claim any thing like a definite statement of the end of a series of developments which are to continue through eternity? Why not rather let the eternal laws of God's government, the same for this life and for all lives, be kept before the mind as faiths, and as far more powerful motives for present conduct, than any abstract conceptions of the issue? Such are some of the objections to the promulgation of our doctrine, which seem to be maintained by a large class of minds. Often do we hear it preached, as if in serious and lofty rebuke to our confidence and enthusiasm, "We may indeed hope for such great results; but we do not know; we can only trust." As though, forsooth, we should claim to know this, or any great spiritual reality, in the sense of a mathematical axiom or conclusion! Is the objector, we ask, so careful to be technically exact, so cautious to modify his statement, when he avows his belief in the unity of God, or in immortality? and yet, will he venture to say that either. of these doctrines has more of the certainty of logical demonstration than the one of which we speak? Did Christ demonstrate immortality to us, or rather did he not ratify our intuitions for us? Have we no other means of knowledge than the reason? Is it absurd to have such faith in an idea, a sentiment, an aspiration, which espouses all the noble qualities of the soul, as to claim for it an assurance of certainty? Again, we hold that this faith will not tend to mitigate the dread of sin. As we consider sin to be the only real evil in the world, so we believe that in

itself lie the germs of all fear. Let us not then doubt the sufficiency of fear in sin, itself, by adding to it any factitious intellectual fantasim of our own. High delegated authorities, certainly, are we, to consider it policy for us to keep a veil of obscurity and uncertainty before a certain issue, lest, forsooth, God should not have appointed barriers enough to sin, without our still supporting a bug. bear of error! Which, as a faith, think you, would be more conducive to making man's heart melt, and his will yield to God, that God is forever pledged to aid us, every soul of us, whenever we turn to him; or, that it is forever certain that some will perish, and will not save themselves? Will it ease a man's conscience, will it lessen his dread of sin and its inevitable consequences, in any present circumstances, to know that he himself will one day be brought into a perception and acknowledgment of his guilt, into the open and voluntary renunciation of it, with all the attendant shame and remorse proportionate to the length of indulgence, and into the acceptance of virtue with a voluntary impulse so strong that he cannot resist, and yet feeling himself embarrassed, crippled and retarded, by every additional moment he had spent in sin? Will he not say, rather, "If I must be brought to that, O let it be now; let me abridge, annihilate, that awful interval of sin and misery between now and then; so fruitless, so unsatisfactory?"

But we say, moreover, it is not for us to leave the future alone in this way. The most explicit and positive representations of the future life not only form a staple subject of discourse for the pulpits of the popular theology in our land, to-day, but are also inextricably blended with all habits of thought on religious subjects, in the minds of the highest or humblest of their worshippers. And it is upon the vital importance of such habits of thought, in their bearings upon present life and conduct, that we ground the value of our faith, and the need of its promulgation. It is not necessary, now, to show in what manner a character is gradually moulded by the unconscious but constant influence of a belief which has become a faith; how a man's dealings with the world, whatever his professions, are modified by the views of life which are realities to his heart. Enough to consider how faiths,

in regard to the future, have the same practical effect upon the present. For, if told to rely, for motives of living, upon the immutable laws of God's government, we cannot but conceive of those laws as having reference to the whole scope of our immortal existence, and as instituted for some purpose, rather than merely for the sake of having laws. So that, after all, our conceptions of that purpose, manifestly referable to the future, are to be of practical value to us. Think, in this little "now" of ours, when so much depends on the incentive for us to do so or so, at this moment, how great an influence is exerted by the belief in a certain tendency of things. Involved in the net-work of conditions, circumstances and actions, which make up the present aspect of humanity, it is impossible for us to see any thing but a very confused shading-off of our actions into the general complexity; in the sea of existence, it is impossible to trace far the ripple made by our own little personalities; and what a powerful influence on a thoughtful person is exerted by his belief in the design or issue of this complexity. How must all things seem awry to him, who thinks that there is some amount of wrong which will never be set right; that some black spot, some private bedlam, however remote or obscure, will still maintain its place throughout eternity, inevitably suggesting some contrariety of controling powers, some heart-crushing Manicheism in the universe. What a large share of earnest aspiration, of active sympathy, motive power for, who can say, how much noble living,-is hereby lost to usefulness! Says the noble Maurice: "Cannot numbers tell of sad effects which the dread of the world to come has produced upon their conduct to other men, upon their judgment of the beautiful world in which God has placed them, upon their thoughts of God himself. Have they not been cold, hard, selfish, whenever their minds have been occupied with the one problem, how they may avert the doom which they fear is awaiting them hereafter? Have they not almost cursed the trees and flowers, the new birth of spring, the songs of birds, the faces of children, as if they were mockeries-witnesses of some present life with which they cannot safely sympathize? Has not the vision of God been one of darkness and horror?"

If, then, human energies cannot but be somewhat confused and paralyzed, in their efforts for the good of one's self and others, by this dim sense of unsatisfactoriness in the government of God, observe on the contrary, the encouragement given to our noblest endeavors, by attributing such a character to the "mighty stream of tendency," as our faith recognizes. It is the assurance that every pure, good and noble thought, word, or deed is exerted upon the winning side; that the good, true, and beautiful are forever verging towards the ascendency, and will absolutely triumph; which can never be, so long as any wickedness, error, or deformity exists; that all tares, all growths of evil, shall be rooted up, and utterly consumed, while all souls-the soil in which the tares were sown— and all good growths upon that soil, shall endure forever. Under no other faith, we maintain, can love to God, love to man, and interest in every good word and work be more completely developed. What could keep the sentinels of truth watching through the weary years, or what could arm her warriors against the violence of error, except it be their belief that "the eternal years of God are hers?" What makes a mortal body insensible to pains of martyr-fires, but a trust in the triumph of the right? What carries the poet through his ordeal of ridicule and poverty, true to the vision until death, save the faith that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever?" Other beliefs may lead a man to care somewhat for men, but in no other do we find scope for such intense love for humanity, as in this. In them all, there is room for an infinite despair for some of our fellow creatures, if not for ourselves; there is room to fear that yearnings, prayers and efforts, may be wasted upon some. Our faith gives us an infinite hope. Every effort for the highest good of any fellow creature shall positively triumph. Every good thing we do is upon a work whose accomplishment is pledged eternally; every evil thing we do, is hindering our desire, and shall eventually come to nought. Our heart of love shall not be forced to poise itself in uncertain hovering over any fellow-creature, until we see him sealed by God as his, this side the grave; but it may fasten itself immediately upon any one it meets, as stamped with the image of God, for all eternity. And

can we conceive a more complete love for God, than that which thrills the soul, when, in company with every creature throughout his universe, we may say unto him, Our Father!

J. C. P.

ART. XX.

Tradition.

History! after all, and despite of all discouragement, there is to every student, every man of closet, or academic recollections, a wonderful stimulus in that word! and, perhaps, I may already, and in defiance of my own judgment, and the warnings around, have nursed within me some project in that most noble, yet least ransacked, department of intellectual research, which, in after years, I may disappoint you and embody. BULWER.

THAT audacious and defiant skepticism, now permeating every department of human thought,-creative as well as critical, which finds its fountain in the dry rock of the German Metaphysic, and whose mingled gallantness of chivalry, and seeming rashness and universality of attack, remind us at once of a Bayard and a Don Quixote, not only threatens to shatter all philosophical fabrics and religious systems into an engulfing pantheistic chaos, but even to dash itself against the walls, hitherto deemed impregnable to all assault, of the grand temple of history, to undermine the foundations of that structure, builded, as we thought, so solidly, showing in its diverse masonry traces of the workmanship of all the generations of every race of organized humanity, and in its skyward growth, commensurate with the progress of the social guild, while prophetic, in its incompleteness, of the coming fortunes of civilization. It menaces the sundering, with sharper than Alexandrian sword, of that mighty tie, something tangled it may be, which binds together in an essential identity all the communities of men who have stood upon this planet in every age since the glimmering of mere legend