as a man
who admitted these premises who would trouble himself to contest the
conclusion."

"But seriously," continued this half-repentant admirer, almost
frightened at the extent of his own freedom of thought, "though I
cannot say I am satisfied with Mr. Newman's notions on this subject,
--and, in fact, cannot make up my mind upon it,--can there be any
thing morally more sublime than the view, that the doctrine of
immortality, which has been superficially supposed, if not necessary,
yet so conducive to sincere and elevated piety, may be readily
dispensed with, as no way necessary (as Mr. Newman feels) for the
spiritual nourishment of the soul? 'Confidence,' he says, 'there is
none; and hopeful aspiration is the soul's highest state. But, then,
there is herein nothing what ever to distress her; no cloud of grief
crosses the area of her vision, as she gazes upwards.' He even
intimates that, from the stress laid upon immortality by 'modern
divines,' they might seem to be 'incarnations of selfishness.' He says
it tends to 'degrade religion into a prudential regard for our interests
after death'; that 'conscience, the love of virtue, for its own sake,
and much more the love of God, are ignored.' Many of the 'spiritual'
school agree with him in this; and some even affirm that the hope of
immortal felicity is but a bribe to selfishness. Can any thing be
more elevated or original than this view?"

"As to the elevation," said I, "I confess I prefer the spectacle of
Socrates, relying even on feeble arguments rather than sink to this
tame acquiescence in a notion so degrading to the Deity, as that
man was created for a dog's life with the tormenting aspiration for
something better. The spectacle of the heathen sage, who, amidst the
thick gloom, the 'palpable obscure,' which involved this subject,
gazed intently into the darkness, and 'longed for the day,'--who
strained every nerve of an insufficient logic, and was willing to
take even the whispers of hope for the oracles of truth, rather than
part with the prospect of immortality,--is, to my mind, much more
attractive. As to the originality of the view you just expressed, why,
it is merely a resurrection of one of the theories of some of our
very 'spiritual deists' a century ago. Collins and Shaftesbury were,
in like manner, apprehensive lest an elevated 'virtue' should suffer
at all from this bribery of a hope of a 'blessed immortality'; as you
may see in the Characteristics.