A friend enclosed to us the above extract with these remarks.: "I enclose a little clipping from the NEW YORK TRIBUNE, You recall how Tennyson speaks (as some would say in the interest of a vague universalism), in IN MEMORIAM, Stanza LV. "That I, considering everywhere, Her secret meaning in her deeds, And falling with my weight of cares, That slope thro' darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, To what I feel is Lord of all, Aud faintly trust the larger hope." I cannot help welcoming any evidence that, however careless Nature may be, the God of Nature extends His 'works of Providence' over even such creatures as seeds of corn with "all their actions." I wonder if Prof. Drummond would find here a text for a new chapter of analogy between law in natural and spiritual. For one I should enjoy his development of the subject quite as much as some of His showings of the darker side. Certainly I would fain read the parables of nature as suggesting rather than forbidding the hope that the possibillity of life survives many hindrances and apparent defeats. I don't believe analogies are to be carelessly exalted into arguments, but I should like to believe that the life of a man had relatively more than one-fifth of the possibiiity of survival than is found vouchsafed to a grain of corn! I should thankfully receive the suggestion of a hope that even those terribly sad failures that are characterized by Jude as "trees without fruit, twice plucked up by the roots" that even these had not exhausted the life-giving resources of Him who teaches us to pray confidently, “THY kingdom come, THY will be done," I might suggest to the skillful analogist some such application of the lesson thus, "Doth God take care for seeds of corn. Thy soul, and the soul of thy brother are of more value than many seeds of corn"! EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS. The following is from a Presbyterian minister in Wisconsin. I thank you for the copy received of "Words of Reconciliation" for February. I believe there are many more mind in the ranks of the ministry in the Presbyterian Church that are in clined to your ideas in regard to the future destiny of mankind. I am myself much inclined to the honest belief, that the whole destiny of mankind is not bound up in this short space of human life on this side of the grave. Yet I want to be instructed and guided only by the sure testimony of Divine revelation. I heartily commend your course in refusing the restraints of human authority which binds the consciences of men, which, even according to our adopted standards, it has no right to do. Please send me one copy of "The Fire of God's Anger" and one copy of "Words of Reconciliation" for three months for the inclosed $1.00.I am also a Presbyterian minister wishing to deal honestly with the souls of men and to "preserve a conscience void of offence before God." My means are very limited else I would have at once ordered the magazine for the whole year. May the Lord bless your faithful efforts for the enlightenment of all them that sit yet in the darkness of sin or of tradition. Yours in the Fellowship of the Gospel. Another minister, in writing from Wisconsin for the book, says, "I am glad that you have dared to overhanl the Church doctrine in Eschatology. It has long needed some exposure in the light of a more perfect system of truth." A Professor in a Theological Seminary says, Your March number reminds me to say a word or two on my mind. Not a copy of the magazine comes to me but it starts up matters that I would like to speak of. I like last month's issue very much. Your article on "Millenarian Criticism "re minds me that what you truly say about the view of the early church as to martyrdom is found in times before Christ, as in 2d Maccabees, [the story of the martyr mother and her seven sons, ]and through the Antiochan Epiphanes times; not formally stated however. I have much respect for the way you maintain he attitude you have taken towards the church and resbytery. We are much obliged to this correspondent for calling attention to the confirmatory testimony from the Maccabean period to the view that resurrection is not, at least in the case of the tried and faithful, the long delayed reward we have been accustomed to suppose it to be. Anyone reading the seventh chapter of 2d Maccabees, and also the twelfth, in which an account is given of offerings and prayers made by Judas and his companions for some of their fellow soldiers who had been slain just after committing an act of gross sin, they will find that the heroes of faith in that day were sustained not only by the hope of resurrection, but that they believed that such vindication and reward was near. A friend of the magazine whose sympathy and aid is always expressing itself in practical ways, writes from Chicago, I have just read the letter on page 87 of the March No. from a minister in Dakota, and I enclose $1.00 for which I wonld like to have you send him the magazine. As we have the bound volume, I will also, if you give me the address, send him the unbound copies we have of last year. We think that he will appreciate them, and they are too valuable to lie idle. We wish very much that we could help to spread your writings over the world. but our means are too small to do much. However, we intend to keep sending our mite, and our mite may be the means of interesting some one that has more influence and money. We trust that you will live to see much fruit result from your labors. A valued correspondent and Presbyterian minister writes, "I am glad that you have the courage and ability to go on with your testimony. I often think, when reading it, of persons who I wish might see it. I should think none could read dispassionately or without prejudice and fail to perceive the force of your scriptural reasonings. Your remarks about the tendency of the old dogma to make its advocates hard and severe are well illustrated in the case of the editor of who is bitterly intolerant of views that differ from his own, and whose habit of calling hard names is a scandal to his friends. I was interested in your remarks about Ingersoll's reply to Dr. Field. I see that Ingersoll's attack is just what might have been anticipated. I had previously written to Dr. F. that he might expect just such a massing of his adversaries forces upon that weak point. There is almost a touch of the ludicrous in Dr. Field's suggesting to Ingersoll. that the acceptance of the dogma of endless suffering is not necessary to his becoming a Christian. It looks like a confession that he cannot meet the infidel and conquer with weapons from his own armory. Dr. F'. avowed belief in one infinitely Good who loves all the creatures He has made is very different from that of Prof. R—who preaches that God hates the wicked, and will preserve their existence in order to show forth upon them the eternal fire of His wrath against sin. It has accured to me that a forcible point might be made in the fact that Christians don't love the doctrine of endless torment. They recoil from it, as both Drs. A. A. Hodge and Pierson have said, and they do not love God for this exhibition of His nature, but in spite of it. If they cannot find their love for Him quickened by meditating upon the awful, endless, doom of the lost, and of the millions of the heathen who, they are compelled to believe, perish in ignorance, does not this itself throw suspicion upon the doctrinę,” VOL. IV.] MAY, 1888. [No. 5. JUST PUBLISHED: THE FIRE OF GOD'S ANGER: OR Light from the Old Testament upon the New Testament teaching concerning Future Punishment, by L. C. BAKER. This volume consists of a series of Bible Studies, from a new point of view, upon the great questions of human destiny, with Preface, and a copious Index of topics, and of Scripture Texts. Price 75 cents, or if sent by mail, 80 cents. Three copies to one address, $2.00. Five copies to one address, $3.00. By enclosing $1.00, the magazine will be sent for three months with this volume: or for one year for $1.50. Addrsss, L. C. BAKER, No. 2022 Delancy Place, Philadelphia, Pa. WITHDRAWAL FROM THE PRESBYTERIAN MINISTRY. Our readers will not be surprised at the announcement that the contest for liberty and progress in the Presbyterian Church, which we have for some time been engaged in, has issued in our withdrawal from the church. We foresaw this from the first as a probable result, but the risk and the sacrifice were accepted in the conviction that some one must make a beginning in this work. If we fell as pioneers in the struggle, the path would be pointed out |