9947 H3 F5 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by FLANDERS & EATON, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of Ohio. E. C. Church, Printer, Zanesville, O. 1430 46. EPISTLE PREFATORY. TO REV. ALEXANDER HALL: Dear Sir-Having finished a Review of your "Universalism against itself," I now feel fully competent to pronounce upon its general merits, and the spirit in which it is executed. And first, allow me to say, that your book is precisely the kind of production I had reason to expect at your hands; for assuredly your Prospectus gave potent promise of future results! You will confess, sir, that from an arrogant and illiterate boaster-shameless as hypocrisy, remorseless as a savage, and unscrupulous of ways and means, as human nature well can be-I say, you will confess, that from such a sourse, anything very truthful, intelligent, and refined, could not reasonably be expected !--Nor would you, Sir, readily expect a professional gamester to be a very pious and useful member of society; a natural born villain, an upright and honest man; an illiterate country booby, an accomplished scholar: and permit me to say, that in my humble estimation, any one thoroughly acquainted with Alexander Hall, would hardly expect anything from his pen on the subject of Universalism, remarkably truthful, modest, or intelligent! Sir, I am compelled to apply to you the forceable language of Whittier : go teach as well Of heaven refreshed by airs from hell! Of deamons planting Paradise"! You appear, sir, to have come to your work with a fierce, dark, and egotistical spirit-your mind richly stored with language and images drawn from the most vulgar vocabulary and the lowest walks of society; and like the Strasburg pies, said to be made of livers perturnaturally swollen; the chief excellence of your book |