up in eternity with consciousness and memory, and all heaven, without working a moral miracle upon his moral nature, cannot prevent his being miserable. Memory will spread before him his guilt, number over and aggravate his crimes, and roll them upon his soul, high as the throne of God. While memory surveys the history of the past, and calls up from the tomb of oblivion, a long and horrific catalogue of sins-consciousness would identify the rebel spirit, now standing in the presence of God, reviewing the past, as the unexcused offender, and thunder in his ears in tones solemn and awful as eternity," THOU ART THE MAN!"

While consciousness and memory exist, there is no running away from one's self. Thousands have tried it, but they have always failed. Men have changed their names, their residence, their garments, and fled their country, with the fallacious hope that they should get away from themselves. But alas! wherever they have gone, whatever change they have made in their names and costumes,they have always found themselves with themselves. Consciousness 'and memory go with them to read in their ears the history of the past, and identify and mark the old rogue.

This is not only sound philosophy, it is sound theology.— Our Saviour, in his account of the rich man and Lazarus, represents much of the misery of the rich man in hades to arise from the reminisciences of time. Abraham is represented as addressing him thus, "Son, REMEMBER that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and thou art tormented.". Here the rich man in hades, which your authors say, means the state of the dead, remembered the events of time, and was tormented by the remembrance.

Now here is a dilemma. Which horn will you take? Deny that memory and consciousness go with us to eternity, and you deny personal identity, and consequently a future existence. Admit that memory and consciousness go with us to the future, and you admit that a review of the past must give pleasure or pain; and that Modern Universalism must be a delusion. Will you carefully and prayerfully think of these things till you hear from me again? Yours affectionately.

My Dear Sir:

LETTER V.

I cannot adopt your views, because the inference which you draw from the nature and operations of conscience, are without foundation in truth. You say conscience administers, in this world, a just and equitable retribution.

Let us look at this matter for a moment. What is conscience? Conscience is a two-fold operation of the mind, which I will denominate moral judgment and moral sense.— That is, conscience is the judgment which the mind forms of its own sentiments and acts, and the moral sense, or feeling, which such judgment produces in the mind. Conscience is not, as some suppose, a divine oracle, the unerring voice of God within. Conscience is right or wrong, according as our moral judgment and moral sense are right or wrong. Let me illustrate.

1. Conscience sometimes rewards persons for that which is morally wrong in itself, and at other times punishes for that which is morally right. Saul of Tarsus conscientiously persecuted the primitive church; and when engaged in stoning Stephen, and in scourging and dragging to prison the harmless saints, he "verily thought" within himself that he was "doing God service." He was engaged in deeds of muder and outrage-trampling both the law and the gospel under his feet, and yet he was rewarded by his conscience. If conscience is that unerring judge, that faithful tribunal of justice which you suppose, the soul of Saul must have writhed in tremendous agony when persecuting the saints. But so far from this he seems to have enjoyed the approbation of his conscience.— Our Saviour told his disciples that the time would come when those who should kill them, would think they were doing God service. The Roman Catholics, as you very well know, have put to death, hundreds of thousands of protestants. A Catholic friar, who had spent year after year in ferreting out and burning heretics, apparently not only without compunctions of conscience, but with great complacency of mind, has been known to be horrified at finding he had eaten meat in Lent. Our Puritanical forefathers were as conscientious a people perhaps as ever lived; but their consciences did not condemn them for banishing the Baptists, and whipping and hanging the Quakers.

They did not understand the doctrine of religious freedom.They partook of the error of the times, that heretics were the enemies of God, and, that no enemy of God could be a friend of the State. Hence they punished those whom they judged to be enemies of God, as enemies of the State. In this they were morally wrong, but they verily thought they were doing God service, and hence they enjoyed the smiles of an approving conscience.

You believe it morally right to cultivate your intellectual powers, and discipline and enlarge your mind by the study of science. Dr. Adam Clark at one time, supposed he was guilty of sin in making efforts to acquire an education; he experienced great compunctions of conscience, and penitently sought divine forgiveness. Thus you see, conscience sometimes rewards us for what is in itself morally wrong, and punishes us for what is in itself, morally right.

2. It is a fact well known in human experience, that conscience becomes more and more deadened by increasing wickedness. A tender and faithful conscience is one that has not been abused and outraged. One profane oath from lips unaccustomed to profanity, produces more compunctions, more real agony of soul, than a thousand such offenses would produce upon the conscience of the bold and reckless blasphemer.The one trembles and fears an oath; while the other actually glories in his shame, and prides himself in the flippancy and low wit of his heaven-daring tongue. The word of God tells us of consciences which have become seared as with a hot iron.— Seared flesh is dead flesh, destitute of feeling. A seared conscience is a dead conscience. The sinner may by his own wickedness, blunt his own moral sensibility, put light for darkness and darkness for light-call evil good and good evil. In short, it is well known that man may violate his own moral nature so much, that his conscience will become as dead as the bones in the grave-yard. A conscience steeped in rum, and choked to death by the ruffian-hand of repeated and long-continued violence, cannot be an umpire capable of administering a just and equitable retribution.

3. Conscience in its operations, depends upon a knowledge of truth and duty. Let me illustrate this by a case familiar to your recollection. In your native town, you remember the village pastor received but a small salary. By the efforts of a few of the principal citizens, he obtained the appointment of Post Master, and, in connection with his office, he kept a little drunkery, as we should call it in this day. He was universally

regarded as a good man; he supported his family in part by preaching, and in part by keeping the village post office, and selling poison to his parishioners. This was a great inconsistency, a moral wrong as you will readily admit, in the sight of God; and yet it was not so regarded by the consciences of the good people of the place, nor by the conscience of the pious pastor. It was as morally wrong in the year 1816 to kill men with rum, as it is in 1841; but in 1816, the good pastor had not arrived at a knowledge of the truth on this subject, and hence his conscience gave him no trouble.

The pious John Newton was once engaged in the slave trade. While on a voyage to Africa after the poor slaves, he spent eight hours a day in devotional exercises, and yet he tells us that it never occurred to his mind that he was doing wrong, He was what we now call a pirate, and yet his conscience did not condemn him. His mind was not enlightened on the subject, and hence his conscience was easy

4. Once more. The operations of a conscience evidently depend upon a conviction of moral agency, and future accountability.

What is it that gives such vivacity to conscience? A sense of guilt resting down in mountain weight upon the soul-guilt which cannot be transferred to others, or concealed from him who will judge the secrets of all hearts. Let this conviction of actual, personal guilt be removed by a belief that man is a creature of necessity, governed by the impulses of fatality, and that death will inevitably remove all to glory, and such a conscience can have no more self-condemning power than a marble statue. A conscience fully in the belief that God is the author of its sins, and that the broad road in which it is unfortunately compelled to walk, will inevitably terminate in the bliss of the heavenly world, can experience no compunctions of guilt.Such a conscience must be as insensible as the tombstone. shock of the Galvanic Battery could not move it. I must believe therefore, if Universalists have any consciences which reward and punish them, that the secret of this retribution may be found in the fact that they are not sound in their own faith. If they ever feel guilt and condemnation, it must be that they somehow fear that God is not the author of their sins, and, that he may perchance, bring them into judgment.

A

Thus you see, my Dear Sir, that conscience is not always a faithful and impartial judge that it sometimes rewards us for doing that which is morally wrong, and punishes us for doing that which is morally right-that its decisions depend upon our

light and knowledge-that it becomes more and more dead as wickedness increases, and that a conscience thoroughly immersed in the conviction that God is the author of its sins, and that the death of the body will adjust all accounts, and fit the soul for glory, can administer no retribution; it is a conscience "twice dead and plucked up by the roots.' May God save you, My Dear Friend, from the carnal peace of such a conYours as ever.

science.

LETTER VI.

My Dear Sir:

I find a very serious difficulty in your system, in the fact that your doctrine actually offers a reward for iniquity; that is, in some instances, it makes sin in its most infamous and diabolical forms, the shortest road to the heavenly world. You will not deny that crimes often abridge human life. Murder, robbery, drunkenness and all kinds of voluptuousness, it is well known, tend to bring the offender down to a premature grave. And it not unfrequently happens that the offender departs this life, unexpectedly to himself, in the midst of some atrocious outrage against God and man. Wicked and blood-thirsty men do not live out half of their days.Now, if all beyond this life, is, to all men, angelic bliss and ineffable joy, then it follows, by necessity, that to all who "throw off this mortal coil" by their crimes, the road of guilt and infamy, is the shortest cut to glory. Let me illustrate. In one of the country towns of Essex county, Mass. a poor, miserable drunkard, during the past winter, as he was reeling home from the drunkery, one cold stormy night, fell int a snow-bank and perished with his bottle of rum in hand. He fell by his own hands. His sins brought him down to a premature grave, and according to Ultra Universalism, up to an early heaven. Had he been a temperate and pious man, in all human probability, he would have lived longer, perhaps many years, in this world of suffering and sin. While here he was in a Universalist hell; but in one of his midnight bacchanalian banquets, the swelling tide of rum and hilarity overflowed the dam and floated the debauched spirit up to the very throne of God!! Impious thought! Thus, you see,