tation. 'And
don't I care for your soul, James?' exclaims Mary Scudder to her lover.
'If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give them to
you, I would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, "I could wish
myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen," and he went on
to show how we must be willing to give up even our own salvation, if
necessary, for the good of others. People said it was a hard doctrine,
but I could feel my way through it. Yes, I would give my soul for yours.
I wish I could.' Now we must on no account permit admiration of Miss
Scudder's transcendent generosity in desiring to make this exchange
blind us to the fatal effect on social happiness which, if such
exchange were possible, the prevalence of a disposition to make it could
not fail to have. If Calvinism were true instead of blasphemous, if God
were really the Moloch it represents Him, and if, moreover, Moloch were
indifferent as to which of his offspring were cast into the fire, caring
only that the prescribed number of victims should be forthcoming in full
tale, nothing can be conceived more likely to prove an encouragement to
evil-doers, and a terror to them that did well, than observation that
well-doing not infrequently led to eternal misery, and evil-doing to
eternal bliss. Again, if in China, where criminals under sentence of
death are permitted, if they can, by purchase or otherwise, to procure
substitutes to die in their stead, a son were to propose to die for a
parent base enough to take advantage of the offer, could any arrangement
be more plainly repugnant to the common-weal than that by which society
would thus lose one of its noblest, instead of getting rid of one of its
vilest members? Or, when in England, a thrifty son, by consenting to cut
the entail of an estate to which he is heir-apparent, enables a prodigal
father to consume in riotous living substance which would otherwise have
eventually become his, is he not clearly taking the worse course for the
public by permitting the property to be wasted, instead of causing it to
be husbanded?

Beyond all question, American Puritan, Chinese or English devotee to
filial affection, would thus, each in her or his degree, have, in the
circumstances supposed, acted in a manner opposed to the general
interest, and would therefore be condemned by Utilitarianism as having
acted immorally. Nor could this verdict be gainsaid if utility and
morality were, as Utilita