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ence. Pardon us when we say this notion is a most transparent delusion, growing from a misapprehension of the genius of God's providence. You say God will punish eternally the most of us,—you say he is punishing us now,—you say there is evil in the world which doubtless God might remove should he neglect to be just,—you say this is a world of sin and sorrow,—all for the sake of right and divine glory—there is no sense in providence but for these—therefore Right is above the measure of our base expediency. But if we shall find God unerringly and unceasingly good—find that all our pains and sorrows are the only means of human happiness—find that although pain follows error, both were in mercy,—find in short that God's severity is in love to us, then the stern Right which would eternally defy happiness will be but the synonym of divine expediency, the father and the friend of Pleasure. Then sin will be folly, but nothing worse; then virtue will be policy, and nothing better; then pain will be the sum of all evils, and joy will be the holiest thing in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath; then the majesty of the Law will be the majesty of our suffering nature, and that right which does no being good will fly wild in the universe, unowned of God or man.
We know that glory of a good deed which lives independent of all reward: we know that the generous heart of man may be roused into passion whence it will leap into the jaws of death, yea, or damnation, defying time and flood and fire, and all of mad or terrible that words can utter or imagination grasp; we know that the royal soul can for time or eternity