He then informed me, that the evidence afforded must not be such as to annihilate the conditions on which man is to be made virtuous and happy, if he is to be made so at all.  It must not be inconsistent with the exercise of either his reason or his faith, nor prevent the play of his moral dispositions, nor triumph by mere violence over his prejudices; it must not operate purely upon the passions or the senses, nor overhear all possibility of offering resistance,—­as would be the case, for example, if a man were placed on the edge of a precipice, and told that he would immediately be thrown over it if he transgressed the rules of temperance or chastity.  The happiness, he said, which God originally designed for his intelligent and moral creatures was a voluntary happiness, springing out of the well-balanced and well-directed activity of all the principles of their nature.  Any revelation, therefore, must proceed on the same basis, both as regards itself and the mode in which it is given.  Arguments and motives morally sufficient, but not more than sufficient, must be addressed to the intellect and the conscience.  All this is necessary to render the felicity and perfection of man stable and permanent; for without such a trial, triumphantly sustained, he would have no security that, in the presence of objects which tend to exert an overpowering influence on his senses or his feelings, he might not at some period of the unknown future be impelled to take a wrong path, and err and be miserable.  This ordeal, originally designed for man and not superseded by revelation, must be continued long enough to render the principles on which he ought to act practical habits; after which he may go forth (sublime and glorious privilege!) to any part of this world, or of any world to which God may call him, master of himself and his destiny; not afraid lest temptations should warp him from a steadfastness that is founded on the decisions of an inflexible will, itself directed by enlightened intelligence and moral rectitude; in a word, in possession of the appropriate and alone appropriate happiness of an intellectual and moral agent; an image of the felicity of the great Creator himself.  This condition, he said, of giving a revelation, so far from being a hardship, is not only in harmony with the nature of things, but is itself an expression of the Divine Beneficence; which designed for man no casual, precarious safety, as the result of transient external violence to the principles of his nature, but a permanent and inviolable equilibrium of the powers within him.  “Heaven itself,” he concluded, “can be heaven only to those who are internally prepared for it.”

“Were there many,” I cried, “who were willing to make the experiment of giving a revelation more unexceptionably than it has been given, on the proposed conditions?”

“Not very many, as you may well suppose,” said he; “but if objectors had been unwilling, they would have been compelled to make it.”