es. Who, and what was the Dread Being--dread in his Majesty and
Justice, but inexhaustible in Love and Mercy--who used these exceeding
means as mere instruments of his pleasure? and what was he himself, that
he should presume to set up his miserable pride of reason, in opposition
to a revelation supported by miracles that must be admitted to come
through men inspired by the Deity, or rejected altogether?

In this frame of mind Roswell was made to see that Christianity admitted
of no half-way belief; it was all true, or it was wholly false.

And why should not Christ be the Son of God, as the Fathers of the Church
had perseveringly, but so simply proclaimed, and as that church had
continued to teach for eighteen centuries? Roswell believed himself to
have been created in the image of God; and his much-prized reason told him
that he could perpetuate himself in successors: and that which the Creator
had given _him_ the power to achieve, could he not in his own person
perform? For the first time, an inference to the contrary seemed to be
illogical.

Then the necessity for the great expiation occurred to his mind. This had
always been a stumbling-block to Roswell's faith. He could not see it; and
that which he could not see he was indisposed to believe. Here was the
besetting weakness of his character; a weakness which did not suffer him
to perceive that could he comprehend so profound a mystery, he would be
raised far above that very nature in which he took so much pride. As he
reflected on this branch of the subject, a thousand mysteries, physical
and moral, floated before his mind; and he became aware of the little
probability that he should have been endowed with the faculties to
comprehend this, the greatest of them all. Had not science gradually
discovered the chemical processes by which gases could be concentrated
and disengaged, the formation of one of those glittering orbs above his
head would have been quite as unintelligible a mystery to him, as the
incarnation of the Saviour. The fact was, that phenomena that were just as
mysterious to the human mind as any that the dogmas of Christianity
required to be believed, exist hourly before our eyes without awakening
skepticism, or exciting discussion; finding their impunity in their
familiarity. Many of these phenomena were strictly incomprehensible to
human understandings, which could reason up to a fountain-head in each
case; and there it was obliged to abandon the i