many respects, are essentially useful to others; but, who, acting from
motives merely human, forfeit for themselves that high reward which
those virtues would obtain, if they were evidences of a lively faith,
and the results of Christian principle. Think me not severe, Mr. Flam.
To be personal is always extremely painful to me."

"No, no, Doctor," replied he, "I know you mean well. 'Tis your trade to
give good counsel; and your lot, I suppose, to have it seldom followed.
I shall hear you without being angry. You, in turn, must not be angry,
if I hear you without being better."

"I respect you, sir, too much," replied Dr. Barlow, "to deceive you in a
matter of such infinite importance. For one man who errs on Mr. Tyrrel's
principle, a hundred err on yours. His mistake is equally pernicious,
but it is not equally common. I must repeat it. For one whose soul is
endangered through an unwarranted dependence on the Saviour, multitudes
are destroyed, not only by the open rejection, but through a fatal
neglect of the salvation wrought by him. Many more perish through a
presumptuous confidence in their own merits, than through an
unscriptural trust in the merits of Christ."

"Well, Doctor," replied Mr. Flam, "I must say that I think an ounce of
morality will go further toward making up my accounts than a ton of
religion, for which no one but myself would be the better."

"My dear sir," said Dr. Barlow, "I will not presume to determine between
the exact comparative proportions of two ingredients, both of which are
so indispensable in the composition of a Christian. I dare not hazard
the assertion, which of the two is the more perilous state, but I think
I am justified in saying which of the two cases occurs most frequently."

Mr. Flam said: "I should be sorry, Dr. Barlow, to find out at this time
of day that I have been all my life long in an error."

"Believe me, sir," said Dr. Barlow, "it is better to find it out now
than at a still later period. One good quality can never be made to
supply the absence of another. There are no substitutes in this warfare.
Nor can all the good qualities put together, if we could suppose them to
unite in one man, and to exist without religion, stand proxy for the
death of Christ. If they could so exist, it would be in the degree only,
and not in the perfection required by that law which said, do _this and
live_. So kind a neighbor as you are, so honest a gentleman, so generous
a master, as y