more who have inflicted infinite wrong, and suffered next to nothing; and they would fain, if they could, get over difficulties which Mr. Newman chooses, from the mere exigencies of his theology, to represent as no difficulties at all.  To escape them or to solve them is the thing principally in the minds of those who contend for a day of recompense; not the imaginary compensation of individual wrongs.  I do contend that, if this world be all, the divine administration in many points is more hopelessly opposed to our moral instincts, and to all our notions of equity and benevolence, than any thing on which you spiritualists are accustomed to justify your censure of Scripture.  You ought, as Harrington says, to go further.” ____

July 30.  I was much interested yesterday morning by a conversation between Harrington and two pleasant youths, acquaintances of Mr. Fellowes, both younger by three or four years than either he or Harrington.  They are now at college, and have imbibed in different degrees that curious theory which, professedly recognizing Christianity (as consigned to the New Testament) as a truly divine revelation, yet asserts that it is intermingled with a large amount of error and absurdity, and tells each man to eliminate the divine element for himself.  According to this theory, the problem of eliciting revealed truth may be said to be indeterminate; of the unknown x varies through all degrees of magnitude; it is equal to any thing, equal to every thing, equal to nothing, equal to infinity.

The whole party thought, with the exception of Harrington, who knew not what to think, that the “religious faculty or faculties” (one or many,—­no man seems to know exactly) are quite sufficient to decide all doubts and difficulties in religious matters.

Harrington knew not whether to say there was any truth in Christianity or not; Fellowes knew that there was none, except in that “religious element,” Which is found alike essentially in all religions; that its miracles, its inspiration, its peculiar doctrines, are totally false.

The young gentlemen just referred to believed “that it might be admitted that an external revelation was possible,” and “that the condition of man, considering the aspects of his history, has not been altogether felicitous as to show that he never needed, and might not be benefited, by such light.”  I could cordially agree with them so far; superabundance of religious illumination not being amongst the things of which humanity can legitimately complain.

But then, as they both believed that each man was to distil the “elixir Vitrae” for himself from the crude mass of truth and falsehood which the New Testament presents, Harrington, with his interrogations, soon compelled them to see how inconsistent they were both with themselves and with one another.  One of them believed, he said, that the Apostles might have been favored by a true revelation; but not in such a sense “as to prevent their often falling