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what I think is the truth. And I ask any serious per- son whether those who say that the doctrines of the Atonement, of the Resurrection, and of the Judgment, can only be received in connexion with certain meta- physical, legal, or commercial explanations,—or I who say that they may be received simply as good news from Heaven, which suffering people on earth have need of, most deserve to be accused of Rationalism?

I have rewritten the Essay on Eternal Life and Eternal Death, and greatly enlarged it. It has been supposed that I have argued for some mitigated notion of future punishment, as more consistent with the mercy of God than the ordinary one. To me the ordinary doctrine seems full of the most miserable mitigations and indulgences for evil. I plead for the Love of God, which resists sin, and triumphs over it, not for a mercy which relaxes the penalties of it. With continual effort,—only by the help of that revelation of God which is made in the Gospel of Christ,—I am able to believe that there is a might of Good which has overcome Evil, and does overcome it. To maintain this conviction, to believe in the Love of God, in spite of the appearances which the world presents and the reluctance of my own nature, I find to be the great fight of life; one in which we are continually baffled, but in which we must hold on, if we are not to become haters of each other, as we are always prone to be. I admire unspeakably those who can believe in the Love of God and can love their brethren in spite of the opinion which they seem to cherish, that He has doomed them to destruction. I am sure that their faith is as much purer and stronger than mine, as it is