the influence of character, the nature and endowment of all men.  It seemed to me, also, that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present action of the soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition, and so the heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal love, conversing with that which he knows was always and always must be, because it really is now.  It appeared, moreover, that if this doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey that would not suffer us to lose our way.

I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church.  The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the ordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment.  He assumed that judgment is not executed in this world; that the wicked are successful; that the good are miserable;[95] and then urged from reason and from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in the next life.  No offense appeared to be taken by the congregation at this doctrine.  As far as I could observe, when the meeting broke up, they separated without remark on the sermon.

Yet what was the import of this teaching?  What did the preacher mean by saying that the good are miserable in the present life?  Was it that houses and lands, offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by unprincipled men, whilst the saints are poor and despised; and that a compensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving them the like gratifications another day,—­bank stock and doubloons,[96] venison and champagne?  This must be the compensation intended; for what else?  Is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise? to love and serve men?  Why, that they can do now.  The legitimate inference the disciple would draw was:  “We are to have such a good time as the sinners have now”; or, to push it to its extreme import:  “You sin now; we shall sin by and by; we would sin now, if we could; not being successful, we expect our revenue to-morrow.”

The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful; that justice is not done now.  The blindness of the preacher consisted in deferring to the base estimate of the market of what constitutes a manly success, instead of confronting and convicting the world from the truth; announcing the presence of the soul; the omnipotence of the will:  and so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and falsehood.

I find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day, and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when occasionally they treat the related topics.  I think that our popular theology has gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has displaced.  But men are better than this theology.  Their daily life gives it the lie.  Every ingenuous and aspiring soul