a mitigation of the suffering. If remorse be the punishment, conscience must be active in the sufferer, and that activity of conscience supposes a change for good, and is in its nature remedial; if consciousness of forfeited joys, the ability to figure those joys implies the capacity of like enjoyment, and that capacity a partial reformation. On the other hand, if such a state be considered in relation to the opposite state of the blest, it is vain, he argues, to deny to the blest a sympathy with souls in torment which must effectually disturb their felicity; it is vain to contend that eternal pains, if decreed, must be just, and that the contemplation of God which constitutes the blessedness of heaven must include the contemplation of his justice; that contemplation does not exclude and cannot neutralize sympathy with suffering, and we even demand of the righteous "a deeper compassion for merited pains than for unmerited."

In discussing these matters one principle is of last importance; namely, that the future, whatever its character, will be a necessary consequence of the present, the natural result of causes now at work, the fruit of a good or evil life. To this principle Mr. Lee directs the attention of his readers in the last-named work on our list:-"It will be noticed that, in the view we advocate, we consider the future history of man-of each man in particular and of all men- to be in accordance with established laws of nature. As he comes into being and develops his powers up to the time of death under such laws, so, we think, his course will from that time onward be natural.” * Much of the error which prevails in relation to the future state must be ascribed to a disregard of this principle. The essential truth involved in the figurative language of Scripture has been confounded with the pictures which envelop it. Hence, in the doctrine of the Church, the natural results of character have been converted into rewards and punishments, these into states of rewards and punishments, and these states have been conceived as entirely distinct from each other, each perfect in its kind and eternal in duration. Such, to this day, are the popular heaven and hell of the Christian world. The

*Eschatology, p. 252. We take great pleasure in expressing our satisfaction in this essay, so respectable in its learning, so refined in its spirit.

consequences of men's actions are eternal. Let us keep this principle in view, and we shall see that the future state of the wicked can hardly be one of pure suffering. For who so depraved that no good has ever mingled with his earthly life? This good, however scanty, is not lost; it must bring forth fruit according to its kind, and yield its consolation in eternity. If any shall object, that, according to this principle, the good must have their sorrows in the world to come, and that "Heaven" is not the unmixed rapture represented by the popular faith, we have no wish to avoid this obvious conclusion. On the contrary, we frankly confess that the popular representation seems to us to err as widely on the one side as on the other; the idea of a heaven into which no sorrow can enter, a broad, unchastened day,

Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,"

seems to us just as absurd as that of a hell whose Stygian hold no joy can penetrate and no hope relieve. The heavens and the hells interpenetrate each other, and the souls of men, with few exceptions, hereafter as here, for a time at least, will inhabit both or harbor both. The difference between the wicked and the righteous consists not so much in the funded good or evil of their respective natures, as in the tendencies — good or evil established in their wills. These tendencies once established will draw their subjects contrary ways, with progressive divergence sundering souls, the good from the bad, attracting the former to the Infinite Good, and impelling the latter— shall we say to the Infinite Evil? There is no infinite evil.

What, then, we renew the question, — is the final destination of incorrigible and exceptional souls? Not endless

torment, we fancy, but everlasting (spiritual) death, utter extinction of the moral life. All the analogies point to this conclusion, all true deductions from the moral nature confirm it, and for those who demand the warrant of the letter, what conclusion more just to the letter of the Scripture which declares that "sin when it is finished bringeth forth death"? Conscience (or self-consciousness) is the life-principle of moral natures. The tendency of sin is to weaken and corrupt, and finally to mortify and destroy, that principle. When accord

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ingly in any soul the evil tendency exceeds a certain stage of development, the soul loses the power of self-recovery, andthe evil tendency still proceeding-arrives at last to rest in evil as its good, and to sin without compunction, or any inward restraint or contradiction.* Then the evil tendency still proceeding-commences a process of mortification, which involves, as its final consummation, loss of consciousness; for consciousness supposes a capacity of distinguishing good and evil, and loss of voluntary power, for voluntary power involves also a moral element. Sin is then finished and has brought forth death. The soul as a moral agent and a conscious individuality is extinct; as a monad it still survives. No longer a person, but a thing, its condition thenceforth is not a question of psychology, but of ontology. And here we dismiss it, as equally, in its further aspects, exceeding our purpose and our space.

All else is

The view we have offered is by no means new, but has never obtained extensive currency in the Christian Church. Yet it is the one which seems to us most defensible, as being less violent in its hypothetical assumptions than Universalism, and more in harmony with just conceptions of Deity and Divine rule than other forms of Partialism. The only point we regard as established in this matter is the "Judgment," that is, the immortality of the moral nature, and a moral connection between the life that now is and the life to come. mere speculation, and so little is gained by speculating on a future state, that the wise, after sounding in vain to the extent of their line in this uncertain deep, will bound their inquiries by such practical conclusions as are best adapted to our moral wants. No reform in theology, as we have labored to show in another part of this journal, ‡ is more needed at present, than one which shall teach us how to prize, and how best to possess, this mortal world. We make too much of death and hereafter. We seem to be wandering at the foot of a mountain,

This is the stage of Devildom, or "Evil Spirits."

To those who are curious in such speculations, the Gnostic cosmogony of early Christendom, which was afterwards unconsciously revived by Jacob Boehme, - the cosmogony which supposes the material universe to be the wreck of a foregone spiritual creation, may suggest the possible uses of lost souls.

See Article III. of this Number.

behind which lies the land of our dreams. And the mountain casts its long, dark shadow across our earth-life, obscuring its import and veiling its glories. The mountain exists only in our conceit, the land of our hopes and our fears is in the soul. We carry within us the "Judgment" to come, and the Judge, and all the hereafter. To be in eternity is not to be personally translated, but spiritually transformed; it is not to be disembodied, but disenchanted, unselfed. To fill the moment worthily is everlasting life.

ART. VI. THE LORD'S DEALINGS WITH GEORGE MÜLLER.

The Lord's Dealings with George Müller. Written by himself. Four Parts. London: Nisbet & Co. 1855, 1856.

THIS narrative of a persistent course of philanthropic action. is one of the most remarkable autobiographies ever written. Occasional glimpses have been given of enthusiastic preachers receiving a suit of clothes nearly as soon as they had prayed for them; and amongst denominations like the Methodist, exceptional cases are always occurring of direct answers to petitions for worldly blessing. But here is a life-history so simple that one knows not how to withhold credence, giving account almost day by day, for twenty-five years, of reliance upon prayer alone for the support, not merely of a large OrphanHouse, but of an efficient Bible Society, Home and Foreign Missions, Charity Schools, and a Ministry at Large occupying two chapels and numbering over six hundred communicants.

The fifth edition of this copious but homely narrative lies. before us, bringing down events into the year 1856. As it is by this humble, open-hearted statement of his work and its method that George Müller is chiefly known, and, as far as worldly instrumentalities are concerned, principally sustained, we shall draw from it the substance of a most interesting experience, as given by its subject. Born at the little Prussian village of Kroppenstädt in 1805, George Müller seems to have been born

an unmitigated scoundrel. If his account of his early youth may be trusted, there were no vices of which he was not capable, few of which he was not guilty. Lying was habitual, thievery of great and small sums from parents and comrades was equally common, - criminal vagrancy and general dissoluteness repeatedly brought him into public disgrace. There seemed to be no guardian angel hovering around his youth,no female attachment, no reverent affection to either parent promising him final deliverance; his fate might have been forecast as a brief and clouded career of pleasure and crime. Confirmed in the regular Prussian church at Halle before these wild oats were half sown, and admitted to communion without prayer or Scripture study, and without so much as owning a single Bible in a library of some size, one would fain hope that the impositions practised upon his parents, the corruption of young associates, and his general profligacy, are painted darker than the reality; for, all the while, he was destined to the Church, and was receiving the best education Germany could give.

At length, in this University-city of Halle, where, according to Müller's account, hardly any Christians could be found, he is converted at the house of a "believing tradesman." The change is so simply told, with such perfect nature, that it inspires faith in the narrator. It was such a prayer-meeting as all of us are familiar with. A hymn was unitedly sung; an African missionary prayed, and it was the first time Müller had seen worshippers kneeling; a chapter of the Bible was read, and then a printed sermon, as a Prussian prohibition confines the discourse to the ordained clergyman; then another hymn, and finally a prayer by the master of the house. "I was happy," says Müller, "though if it had been asked why, I could hardly have explained it. Whether I fell on my knees when I returned home, I do not know; but this I know, that I lay peaceful in my bed. I have not the least doubt, that on that evening the Lord began a work of grace in me, though I obtained joy without any deep sorrow of the heart, and with scarcely any knowledge. But that evening was the turningpoint of my life."

Next, he longs for the missionary life; is encouraged by