e live in; and, doubtless, a vast majority of the men we
daily meet really believe that all who try to the best of their
ability, according to their light and circumstances, to do what is
right, in the love of God and man, shall be saved. In that moving
scene of the great dramatist where the burial of the innocent and
hapless Ophelia is represented, and Lacrtes vainly seeks to win
from the Church official

21 In Acta Apostolorum, homil. xxiv.

22 Gotze, Ueber die Neue Meinung von der Seligkeit der angeblich
guten und redlichen Seelen unter Juden, Heiden, und Turken durch
Christum, ohne dass sie an ihn glauben.

the full funeral rites of religion over her grave, the priest may
stand for the false and cruel ritual spirit, the brother for the
just and native sentiment of the human heart. Says the priest,
"We should profane the service of the dead To sing a requiem and
such rest to her As to peace parted souls." And Laertes replies,
"Lay her in the earth; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
Shall violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering
angel shall my sister be When thou liest howling."

Indeed, who that has a heart in his bosom would not be ashamed not
to sympathize with the gentle hearted Burns when he expresses even
to the devil himself the quaint and kindly wish, "Oh wad ye tak' a
thought and mend!"

The creeds and the priests, in congenial alliance with many evil
things, may strive to counteract this progressive self
emancipation from cruel falsehoods and superstitions, but in vain.
The terms of salvation are seen lying in the righteous will of a
gracious God, not in the heartless caprice of a priesthood nor in
the iron gripe of a set of dogmas. The old priestly monopoly over
the way to heaven has been taken off in the knowledge of the
enlightened present, and, for all who have unfettered feet to walk
with, the passage to God is now across a free bridge. The ancient
exactors may still sit in their toll house creeds and confessionals;
but their authority is gone, and the virtuous traveller, stepping
from the ground of time upon the planks that lead over into eternity,
smiles as he passes scot free by their former taxing terrors.

The reign of sacramentalists and dogmatists rapidly declines.
Reason, common sentiment, the liberal air, the best and
strongest tendencies of the people, are against them to
day, and will be more against them in every coming day. Every
successive explosion of th