"THE SECOND DEATH. "
[To THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.") :SIR,—Though I am sure it will astonish Mr. Llewelyn Davies, it is nevertheless a fact that there is no paper which I more regularly peruse than the Spectator; but, owing to absence from home, I have only just seen his letter in the Spectator of July 10, strongly -condemning the doctrine of a tract, recently issued by the S.P.C.K., entitled "The Second Death." The doctrine is "old-fashioned." Mr. Davies and others dislike the doctrine, and therefore it ought not to be proclaimed by a tract of that society.
Mr. Davies quotes some half-dozen unconnected sentences from the tract, which give no fair idea of its tone and spirit. I refer your readers to the tract itself, and appeal to the plain teaching of the Bible as the authority for all that the tract sets forth. Surely, it is no discredit to the doctrine, but a great argument in its favour, that it is "old-fashioned." For it shows that readers of the Bible in the generations that have gone before have gathered this doctrine from it. Is the Bible a misleading book? And that the Church of England bolds this doctrine is, I think, suffi- -ciently plain, from the petition which she teaches us so constantly to offer, "From thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation, good Lord deliver us."
Though I know your own views well enough, Mr. Editor, I trust you will allow me this short reply to Mr. Llewelyn Davies's long letter.-1 am, Sir, &C., THE AUTHOR OF THE TRACT.
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