SI11,—At a time when the awful and mysterious question of
the awards of a future life are exciting so much attention and anxiety, and our authorized teachers give us so little help towards under- standing it, will you allow me, as a layman, to state a few con- siderations, the result of some reading and reflection, whil do not appear to have been as yet fully presented to your readers ?
1. I consider that the true solution of the question must be sought in the laws of man's moral nature as well as in Scripture, and that the Scripture terms of salvation and its opposite, when interpreted in accordance with those laws, do not so much indicate absolute as relative moral states so as to admit of almost infinite degrees in both. As in the physical nature of man there are various degrees of health, from that absolute soundness and perfect health, which is the lot of the few, to that moderate degree of health which the mass of mankind enjoy, so there are like degrees of what I may call moral health.
2. Man's character, i.e., his moral and spiritual nature, in which alone he can be rewarded or punished, is formed or developed in this life by his conduct. The result, in either happiness or misery, is not an arbitrary appointment of the Supreme Being, but the inevitable consequence of the eternal law of causation, by which, in this, as well as in a future state, man reaps as he has sown.
3. It follows from this that there must be as many and as various moral states as there are individual men, and consequently that to attempt to draw a sharp line of demarcation between the "saved" and the " lost " is absurd, inasmuch as one man may be saved or lost a hundred-fold more than another, and the two lines must in some cases be nearly coincident.
4. If this be admitted, the question which weighs so heavily on the minds of men in this day, viz., the alleged eternity of punish- ment, will, I think, have partly received its solution. In this life retribution begins. The consequences of a misspent youth or wasted manhood cannot be fully retrieved, and however the sinner may repent and reform he can never attain to that moral height which he would have occupied had he never deviated from the right course, any more than the traveller bound to a distant city can ever regain the time he has wasted in wandering from the direct road. Why should not the same law prevail in a future life also? It may be that one who has entered upon it in the perfec- tion of his moral nature, so far as human frailty admits, shall attain to a height of perfection and felicity which another who has mis- used his opportunities of good can never reach, and so his punish- ment will, in a sense, be eternal. It may also be that in like manner all men shall in their several degrees undergo the merciful discipline of punishment. The man of saintly life may carry about him throughout eternity the spiritual scars of long repented trans- gresaions, and may never stand so near the throne of the Eternal as he might have done, and in this way it may be that the righteous shall enter on everlasting felicity, and the wicked into everlasting punishment, not as two distinct classes, but as subjects to the eternal law of retribution which has governed them here, and will continue to do so throughout eternity. To a mind spiritually awakened this is an awful consideration ; but it doers no violence to the moral feelings, as the popular doctrine does. On the contrary, it commands our assent and reverence, and if we fully realized this awful law of our being we should need no material hell to awaken our fears. As to the unawakened in this life, I would humbly en- tertain the hope expressed in those memorable words, which have awakened a response in many a mind, "that there shall be found after the great adjudication receptacles suitable for those who shall be infants, not as to years of terrestrial life, but as to spiritual development, nurseries, as it were, and seed-grounds, where the undeveloped may grow up under new conditions, the stunted may become strong, and the perverted be restored."
These views, I am well aware, will not satisfy the worshippers of the letter of Scripture and creeds of human invention ; but I com- mend them to the candid consideration of those who, like myself, are endeavouring to reconcile the teaching of God's voice within us with the written revelation.—I am, Sir, your constant reader,
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