And then, in regard to sin:  no one has ever disputed the fact that sin is rampant in this world, and is deserving of punishment.  But theologians of the school of Augustine and Calvin, in view of the fact, have assumed the premise—­which indeed cannot be disputed—­that sin is against an infinite God.  Hence, that sin against an infinite God is itself infinite; and hence that, as sin deserves punishment, an infinite sin deserves infinite punishment,—­a conclusion from which consciousness recoils, and which is nowhere asserted in the Bible.  It is a conclusion arrived at by metaphysical reasoning, which has very little to do with practical Christianity, and which, imposed as a dogma of belief, to be accepted like plain declarations of Scripture, is an insult to the human understanding.  But this conclusion, involving the belief that inherited sin is infinite, and deserving of infinite punishment, appals the mind.  For relief from this terrible logic, the theologian adduces the great fact that Christ made an atonement for sin,—­another cardinal declaration of the Scripture,—­and that believers in this atonement shall be saved.  This Bible doctrine is exceedingly comforting, and accounts in a measure for the marvellous spread of Christianity.  The wretched people of the old Roman world heard the glad tidings that Christ died for them, as an atonement for the sins of which they were conscious, and which had chained them to despair.  But another class of theologians deduced from this premise, that, as Christ’s death was an infinite atonement for the sins of the world, so all men, and consequently all sinners, would be saved.  This was the ground of the original Universalists, deduced from the doctrines which Augustine and Calvin had formulated.  But they overlooked the Scripture declaration which Calvin never lost sight of, that salvation was only for those who believed.  Now inasmuch as a vast majority of the human race, including infants, have not believed, it becomes a logical conclusion that all who have not believed are lost.  Logic and consciousness then come into collision, and there is no relief but in consigning these discrepancies to the realm of mystery.

I allude to these theological difficulties simply to show the tyranny to which the mind and soul are subjected whenever theological deductions are invested with the same authority as belongs to original declarations of Scripture; and which, so far from being systematized, do not even always apparently harmonize.  Almost any system of belief can be logically deduced from Scripture texts.  It should be the work of theologians to harmonize them and show their general spirit and meaning, rather than to draw conclusions from any particular class of subjects.  Any system of deductions from texts of Scripture which are offset by texts of equal authority but apparently different meaning, is necessarily one-sided and imperfect, and therefore narrow.  That is exactly the difficulty under