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always seems a fearful break in nature: almost a return to chaos. We speak of the dark, mysterious valley only in terrified whispers. Now, all this cannot be said of those homes and hearts where Spiritualism is the earnestly accepted faith. I have heard these people talk so rationally, so naturally of the other life, that death seemed to have no dominion over them. With them death is an almost obsolete word. They only speak of going "out of the form," of going to "the summer land," of going "to the other side." Even their children live in the golden atmosphere of hope and trust; and learn to talk of heaven as only the upper chambers of their earthly home.

As I go into the old churchyards, and see, (keeping watch over the graves), the grinning death's head cut in stone, I think of those unknown thousands buried under the mighty Rome, many of whose simple graves bear only the touching words, "Asleep in Jesus." And then I pray for the help of any faith that can take away from the human heart the awful fear of the grave, and bring back to the church of Christ the joy and trust of his early disciples. The faith that can do this should be welcomed by our hearts as a glorious instrument of the divine religion of Jesus Christ.

S.

LETTERS FROM DR. CHANNING.

SOMETIMES, when in a strange place, we are suddenly gladdened by coming across a friend whom we have not seen for many years. The expressions of his countenance, the tones of his voice, are a source of exquisite happiness. And if in talking with him we find deeper sources of sympathy, and learn that we have been all these years interested in the same subjects and making progress in the same direction, especially if these subjects are of the most serious and reflecting character and we have been advancing towards. more elevated and inspiring views, our mutual enjoyment is

of a more permanent and satisfying nature. Old associations are reviewed with a new interest. Old ties of friendship are renewed. The past which blossomed before us in the freshness of our youthful hopes is now here with its ripe and mellow fruits. Perhaps something of this kind will characterize our experience when we pass out of this world and meet again the pure, disinterested, and loving friends whose intercourse once made so large a part of our happiness and our improvement. Next to meeting a dear friend or revered teacher long absent is the privilege of falling in with some common friend who brings him vividly before us, or finding some written expression of his which opens to us his mind and heart as they were in his best moments when he was with us.

It is with feelings of this kind that we have received from a friend two letters written by Dr. Channing to a lady who had evidently been going through a very trying experience. The first of the two is perhaps the more characteristic of the spiritual condition of the writer. But the second goes through a wider range, and shows a wise and discriminating tenderness to the evidently disordered and diseased condition of his correspodent. Neither of the letters has before been printed, and neither of them is quite complete.

To Mrs. H.

The inability to realize the great truths of the Christian faith of which you complain, is what we all know by mournful experience in some part of our journey. In truth, who is not always conscious of it in a measure? Relief generally comes silently, slowly, through patient obedience to the Divine Will. The principle of obedience may exist in us when the power of vivid spiritual conception is wanting. It is possible, when the future is dim, when our depressed faculties can form no bright ideas of the perfection and happiness of a better world, — it is possible still to cling to the conviction of God's merciful purpose towards his creatures, of his parental goodness even in suffering; still to feel that the path of duty, though trodden with a heavy heart, leads to peace; still to be true to conscience; still to do our work, to resist temptation, to be useful,

though with diminished energy, to give up our wills when we cannot rejoice under God's mysterious providence. In this patient, though uncheered obedience, we become prepared for light. The soul gathers force. The clouds gradually melt, and beams of hope visit us. It seems to me not wise to strain our minds for a joy which cannot so come to us. Do the present duty, withstand the present temptation. Make use of the stronger faith of friends. Exercise good affections to all around. Look to God, and welcome every illumination, however faint, every attraction towards him. It is especially important to be more earnest for improvement, for a deep, real purification of our minds, than for consolation. fort will spring up in the path of Christian progress.

My Dear Madam:

BOSTON, April 5.

I am encouraged to write you by the cheering assurance in your last that you had gained from my letter a gleam of comfort. I thank God for enabling me to shed even a gleam over your troubled spirit. I hardly promised myself more, because your difficulties are of a kind which moral influence alone cannot remove. You ascribe them to outward causes, to the mysteries of Scripture and Providence. But other persons look on Scripture and Providence with trust and joy. Why do you differ? Have you not learned that we are all apt to owe the hue of our own mind to what we look on. You suffer from mental morbidness, connected, I have no doubt, with physical causes, and outward, as well as inward means, must contribute to your cure.

Since receiving your letter, three days ago, two cases have fallen under my notice of persons of superior intelligence and views reduced to a deep melancholy by a diseased state of moral sensibility, which I could trace in a great measure to physical difficulties. In neither case are there any of the doubts which torment you. The views taken of religion by these individuals are rational and mild, and yet a measure of your gloom pervaded over their spirit. I believe that a wiser education, helping them to distinguish between the actual and passive state of their minds, will save future generations from much of our mental suffering. Posterity will see nerves where we see demons. I am sorry to see you so troubled by particular texts and particular events. These must often be perplexing to us because we see few of their connections. When disturbed by these, I take refuge in broad views of nature and reve

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lation which God in his goodness affords me. I look around on the universe. How beautiful, how vast, how full of order, harmony, and beneficence! And I cannot but feel myself encompassed by love. It is now Sunday morning, and I have just read to my family the exquisite description of spring and the seasons in the sixty-fifth Psalm; and, as I look out from my window on the serene sky, on the oceans of light which the sun is shedding over the earth, on the budding tree and the tender grass, I see, I feel, that the universe, regarded in its permanent and boundless arrangements, is an ever living and present witness of the perfection of its Author. The Creator is to be judged by the grand laws of the system rather than by isolated events: and these are evidently wise and beneficent. Take the law of gravitation which binds the universe together. This may cause a falling stone to crush an individual. But try to conceive of its sublime operation, of the beautiful order it establishes between the sun and planets, between the earth and all things which live and move on its surface, and what an infinity of good does this single law every moment produce! I am not insensible to the evils of life, - as you will see in a discourse which I sent for you to Miss R. I will not repeat what I there said, but will only observe that I am less and less troubled with these. I am more and more assured that our happiness and dignity lie not in what we call enjoyment, but in action, energy, putting forth and unfolding our powers, especially our noblest powers; and I do see that, among the excitements to energy of thought, feeling, disinterested love, faith, and hope, suffering, in one form or another, holds an important, perhaps the chief, place. But, passing over such arguments, how can we believe that God has made rational beings for the purpose of torturing them forever? I feel that I would not do so for the universe, nor would you; and can the Infinite Father, who has no temptation to wrong-doing, who is perfectly happy in himself, who has given me my knowledge of the right and good, can he be guilty of this enormous, unprovoked, gratuitous cruelty? You cannot seriously believe it. In moments of gloom, when reason is almost prostrated, we may fear this, and distrust almost anything; but bring the matter systematically, deliberately before your mind, and you must repel it as you would a palpable contradiction. You ask my opinion about particular texts. I read Scripture as I do nature: that is, I take broad views of it. The Scriptures, written ages ago, made up of fragments, composed in different ages, written in a foreign language, in a different stage

of society, and in distant regions (written, too, not with logical accuracy, but in the bold, free style of the imagination and heart), must of necessity contain many obscure passages. I expect them, and they do not trouble me. I read the whole Gospels, and from all I see, as clear as the sun's light, that Jesus is the friend of the human race; that he came on a work of mercy; that he reveals the parental goodness of God in his sinful human family; that he proffers divine aid to our weakness; that he teaches the true perfection of our nature in order that we should seek it; that he opens before us immortal life, unbounded blessedness; that he places this within. the reach of every human being; that he always speaks to us as free and accountable, and assures us that nothing can make us miserable but our own chosen disobedience. Such is the spirit of the Gospels. I cannot mistake it, and before the brightness of this truth difficulties vanish. You ask me many questions about the resurrection of the body. I see, in general, that it is highly reasonable to expect some physical organization in the next world, because progress is the law of the universe; and, were man to pass from his present gross corporeal existence into a purely spiritual being, the transition would be so violent as to contradict all our analogies. I believe that we receive this organization at the moment of death; for I see no reason to anticipate a suspension of consciousness for ages. Whether this will be the only resurrection, or whether there is to be a future change designated by that term, whether judgment passes on each man at death, or whether there is also to be a universal, simultaneous judgment, I cannot confidently say. That much of the language about judgment is taken from human judicature we know ; and if you will turn to John's Gospel, twelfth chapter, forty-seventh and forty-eighth verses, you may see reason to give a more spiritual interpretation of Christ's language on this point than you have done. But I feel no anxiety to settle the precise import of Scripture on this point. No matter how or when I am to exist hereafter, what I want to know is whether I am indeed immortal, whether God desires my happiness and progress without end, whether I have the means of this good, whether I am ripe for perfection, for triumph over all evil, and receiving assurance on these points from revelation and from God's voice. Furthermore, I can afford to be ignorant about a thousand details, and have nothing to do, but strive for the prize set before me.

You also propose questions about the Devil,· a subject about which I can say little positively, and am very willing to be ignorant.

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