The Devil is no part of the gospel. Jesus found the notion among the Jews, as well as other nations. We have not the slightest information that it was ever communicated by revelation. Its origin may easily be traced to the imagination and fears of men in earlier ages. The common notion of the Devil is absurd and contradictory, and makes him the chief of fools as well as demons. There are, however. passages in the New Testament which seem to imply that a powerful spiritual being acts as a tempter to mankind. These passages are probably accommodations to the prevalent modes of thought and speech. But that such a being is possible, as I feel my great ignorance of the spiritual world, I cannot speak confidently. Nor does the notion seem to deserve any anxious thought. Dismiss or keep the Evil One, the gospel remains the same. Human life remains the same. Satan is brought in to explain the temptations of the present state. Now, these temptations are plain matters of fact. They belong to life. No matter whether they come from a spiritual being or from our own nature. In either case their amount is the same. Why trouble ourselves, about their source? For the Devil's own sake, I should be pleased to know that he does not exist; for it is painful for me to think of a being so powerful given up to crime, malignity, and hate. But if he exist, he is under the same control with wicked men. pious to make him a second God as some do. rational when he called him "caitiff," and drove him away by laughter and scorn. I dissuade none from believing in the Devil; but I beseech them not to fear, but to resist him.

It is almost im

Luther was more

I can only notice one more question of yours, that about "the sin against the Holy Ghost." This sin was committed by them (as you will see by consulting the Gospels) who ascribed Christ's miracles to Beelzebub. They called the Divine Power, the Holy Spirit which was in him, an "Infernal Power," and in so doing they not only manifested the height of impiety and malice, but cut themselves off from repentance by rejecting the very evidence on which the truth of God rested. They turned the very attestations of Christ's divinity into grounds of rejecting and contemning him. On this account their pardon seemed impossible. There seemed no access to repentance. We know that all sin which is repented is forgiven, and no sin is unpardonable but that which excludes repentance. Let me add that when Jesus spoke of the sin against the Holy Spirit as unpardonable he used. . .. . . It is easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter

the kingdom of heaven. I see not that any being in this age of the world is in danger of the sin against the Holy Spirit as committed by the Jews, and I am sure none can commit it who are anxious to avoid it.

I have not time to answer your other questions at length. Moses did not teach a future state, because the great end of his religion was to keep a rude people true to the worship of one God amidst idolatry, requiring temporal, immediate, visible sanctions. In regard to immortality, the Jews are left to tradition and reason, as other nations were, and the new heaven and new earth are probably prophetical modes of expressing the universal triumphs of Christianity.

But I must stop. Allow me to beg you not to trouble yourself about matters of secondary moment. There are, and must be, dark passages in such a book as the Bible. Let them pass as designed for other times and other persons. Our salvation cannot depend on our acuteness in interpreting texts, but on our humble and resolute obedience to what God reveals to our understanding and consciences. The great ideas of Christianity stand out in glorious relief. Holding these, I can afford to be ignorant about . . .

I have read many of the best commentators, and am grateful to them for their aid; but all the lights which they give are as nothing compared to the truth which a simple mind may gain from the plain passages of the gospel. Be willing to be ignorant; if possible, put to rest this anxious, inquisitive spirit, and think only of carrying into life, and cherishing in your heart, the pure and disinterested principles of the Sermon on the Mount. This temporary abstinence from agitating subjects would fit you to return to them with new resources of mind. At present, you will gain little, I fear, from discussion. You want relaxation, exercise, rest, for your overtasked faculties. Turn, if you can, to try innocent pursuits: cease to be a theologian for a time, and I hope you will get new health of body and mind. You will accept this long letter as a proof of my deep interest in your state. If it does not satisfy you, accept it, I pray Very truly yours,

you, as a testimony of Christian affection.

W. E. CHANNING.

You say you have lost open your heart to the

P.S.-On one topic I have not written. a promising and lovely boy. I beg you to natural impressions which the loveliness of childhood makes on us. Be assured that God, who clothed that little being with his beauty,

and inspires you with the pure affection of a mother, is kinder than you are. Your love was a faint image of the divine. God took him away in love. Death has not severed your child from his best friend. The language of Christ in regard to children cannot be explained away. And who can be so inhuman as to wish to pervert those words of heavenly consolation?

HUSBAND, WIFE, CHILD.

BY A. P. PUTNAM.

Is it well with thy To these interroga

As the Shunammite "came unto the man of God to Mount Carmel," Elisha bade his servant, Gehazi, go forth to meet her and say to her, "Is it well with thee? husband? Is it well with the child?" tories she answered, "It is well." We may, perhaps not inaptly, allow these words of the prophet and the Shunammite to suggest what we have to say on the subject of the family relation.

Not every wife and mother can say, in the higher meaning of the expression, "It is well." For while there are many wives and mothers who can say this and do say it; while there are many home circles which are the scenes of health, purity, concord, light and love, all the members helping each other in every noble way, and making their life-sphere a very type and promise of a heaven to come, there are others which chiefly tell of sin and sorrow; many others which are filled with mutual fear and distrust, with alienation and strife, with injustice, cruelty and moral degradation, and in which it is not well with husband, wife, or child.

God's great purpose in ordaining the home was to ensure the higher well-being of all who should enter it by marriage or birth. The home was designed to be a means of the proper education of all who might belong to it, whether parents or children. It is, in short, a school, than which, when rightly understood, no better exists or can be conceived of—

a school in which the members, old and young, are to care for and aid each other to the end that all may grow together into the noblest physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual development. There is no education which one receives in other institutions that can be compared in value with that which he acquires in an intelligent, refined, high-principled, well-regulated Christian home. Yet how few, after all, accept and practically realize this higher idea of the family relation! Marriage is, in numberless cases, a false, mercenary arrangement. It is a mere social convenience, or pecuniary gain. Or it is a blind impulse, a hasty indiscretion. Less frequently is it a wise and deliberate plan of life for the noblest perfection of character and for the most exalted happiness and joy, based upon genuine and enduring affection. What wonder, then, that the home, instead of being the most beautiful, blessed spot on earth, is so often the most wretched and miserable of places? What wonder that it is not well with the wife, or husband, or child?

With the wife. For unless this true idea of home, with a deep love underlying and inspiring it, animates and guides. the husband, the bright hopes and cherished dreams of the wife are doomed early to be blasted. Alas, the wrongs and the sufferings, the disappointments and degradations, which the husband not seldom inflicts upon her whom he has solemnly promised to love, honor, comfort and protect! Wrongs, whose cruelty is only to be estimated by the measure of her fond anticipations and cloudless prospects, when, arrayed in bridal attire, she gave him her heart and hand. Stealing in upon her soul comes the first dread thought of affection that is growing cold. But this, she imagines, is an idle fear or fancy, and she again and again repels the intruder until indisputable neglect confirms in her mind the terrible, but yet unwhispered impression. More and more it becomes evident that his heart is not supremely and as formerly in its proper place, but that other haunts and associations, companionships and pleasures, have come in to lure away from her his loyalty and love. Nor is it hers to know, least of all to share, his club-room or theatre enjoyments, or whatever else occu

pies so much of his time and care that he has but little left for his domicil and those who inhabit it. Perhaps there comes also the more appalling thought of his lapse from purity and virtue; and when the conviction of such infidelity to the marital vow is borne in upon the mind of the wife, it is as a worm at the root of all that is sweet and fair in her life. Yet from whatever cause the estrangement may come, how she will seek to win back the heart that threatens to break utterly away! Faithful before, she is more faithful than ever now. She will forgive him a thousand times all the past, if he will only be hers again. What watchful assiduities! What exclusive devotion to his interests! How all else is cheerfully given up which might interfere with the one object in view! How she will study his every look, catch every expression of the eye or lip, obey every frown, or gesture, or utterance, patiently, uncomplainingly, and with some secret hope that sustains her through it all! Not every one does this, but many do it to the bitter end. I do not say they are bound to do it, but I honor them for doing it, martyrs that they are. What will not a good wife do for one she loves? What oppressions will she not bear what indignities upon all that is tenderest and loveliest in her nature what sacrifices of comfort, position, enjoyment, and even of self-respect! There are women all about us in these populous towns and cities who are fighting just this great battle- gentle, refined, loving souls, who are struggling under these heavy loads and who keep the secret to themselves, except as you read it in the wan and joyless countenance, and who scarcely, if ever, know what it is to receive the simplest expressions of sympathy, or the slightest tokens of appreciation, from those who ought most to give them.

For there is nothing so grateful and helpful to a woman as these little manifestations of sympathy and appreciation of which I speak. They cost but little to the husband, but they are to the wife what dew and sunshine are to the plant or flower. You may say that this sympathy and appreciation may be sufficiently understood to exist without the corresponding word, or look, or manner to attest its reality. But it