alds of Light' on the other, if a right thing
is said, 'judge ye.' If infidels are here, there are devout, yes, and
very orthodox Christians there.

I beg to say that when I speak of 'old cerements' being put off, I
pre-suppose a living body in resurrection. Also, I don't call
_marriage_, for instance, an old cerement. We must distinguish. With
regard to the common notion of a 'hell,' as you ask me, I don't believe
in it. I don't believe in any such thing as arbitrary reward or
punishment, but in consequences and logical results. That seems to me
God's way of working. The Scriptural phrases are simply symbolical, it
seems to me, and Swedenborg helps you past the symbol. Then as to the
Redemption and its mode--let us receive the thing simply. Dr. Adam
Clarke, whose piety was never doubted, used to say, 'Vicarious suffering
is vicarious nonsense.' Which does not hinder the fact that the
suffering of the Lord was necessary, in order that we should not suffer,
and that through His work and incarnation His worlds recovered the
possibility of good. It comes to the same thing. The manner in which
preachers analyse the Infinite, pass the Divine through a sieve, has
ceased to be endurable to thinking men. You speak of Luther. We all
speak of Luther. Did you ever _read_ any of his theological treatises.
He was a schoolman of the most scholastic sect; most offensive, most
absurd, presenting my idea of 'old cerements' to the uttermost. We are
entering on a Reformation far more interior than Luther's; and the
misfortune is, that if we don't enter we must drop under the lintel. Do
you hear of the storms in England about 'Essays and Reviews'? I have
seen the book simply by reviews in abstract and extract. I should agree
with the writers in certain things, but certainly not in all. I have no
sort of sympathy with what is called 'rationalism,' which is positivism
in a form. The vulgar idea of miracles being put into solution, leaves
you with the higher law and spiritual causation; which the rationalists
deny, and which you and I hold faithfully. But whatever one holds, free
discussion has become necessary. That it is full of danger; that, in
consequence of it, many minds will fall into infidelity, doubt, and
despair, is certain; but through this moral crisis men must pass, or the
end will be worse still. That's my belief, I have seen it coming for
years back.

'The hungry flock looks up and is not fed,' except with chopped hay of
the