The Destiny of the Soul | Page 2

a vat of
molten iron. The thought of what happened then horrifies the
imagination. Yet it was all over in two or three seconds. Multiply the
individual instance by unnumbered millions, stretch the agony to
temporal infinity, and we confront the orthodox idea of hell!
Protesting human nature hurls off such a belief with indignant disdain,
except in those instances where the very form and vibration of its
nervous pulp have been perverted by the hardening animus of a
dogmatic drill transmitted through generations. To trace the origin of
such notions, expose their baselessness, obliterate their sway, and
replace them with conceptions of a more rational and benignant order,
is a task which still needs to be done, and to be done in many forms,
over and over, again and again. Though each repetition tell but slightly,
it tells.
Every sound argument is instantly crowned with universal victory in
the sight of God, and therefore must at last be so in the sight of
mankind. However slowly the logic of events limps after the logic of
thoughts, it always follows. Let the mind of one man perceive the true
meaning of the doctrine of the general resurrection and judgment and
eternal life, as a natural evolution of history from within, and it will
spread to the minds of all men; and the misinterpretation of that
doctrine so long prevalent, as a preternatural irruption of power from
without, will be set aside forever. For there is a providential plan of
God, not injected by arbitrary miracle, but inhering in the order of the
world, centred in the propulsive heart of humanity, which beats throb

by throb along the web of events, removing obstacles and clearing the
way for the revelation of the completed pattern. When it is done no
trumpets may be blown, no rocks rent, no graves opened. But all
immortal spirits will be at their goals, and the universe will be full of
music.
NEW YORK, February 22, 1878.
PREFACE.
WHO follows truth carries his star in his brain. Even so bold a thought
is no inappropriate motto for an intellectual workman, if his heart be
filled with loyalty to God, the Author of truth and the Maker of stars. In
this double spirit of independence and submission it has been my desire
to perform the arduous task now finished and offered to the charitable
judgment of the reader. One may be courageous to handle both the
traditions and the novelties of men, and yet be modest before the
solemn mysteries of fate and nature. He may place no veil before his
eyes and no finger on his lips in presence of popular dogmas, and yet
shrink from the conceit of esteeming his mind a mirror of the universe.
Ideas, like coins, bear the stamp of the age and brain they were struck
in. Many a phantom which ought to have vanished at the first cock
crowing of reason still holds its seat on the oppressed heart of faith
before the terror stricken eyes of the multitude. Every thoughtful
scholar who loves his fellow men must feel it an obligation to do what
he can to remove painful superstitions, and to spread the peace of a
cheerful faith and the wholesome light of truth. The theories in
theological systems being but philosophy, why should they not be
freely subjected to philosophical criticism? I have endeavored, without
virulence, arrogance, or irreverence towards any thing sacred, to
investigate the various doctrines pertaining to the great subject treated
in these pages. Many persons, of course, will find statements from
which they dissent, sentiments disagreeable to them. But, where
thought and discussion are so free and the press so accessible as with us,
no one but a bigot will esteem this a ground of complaint. May all such
passages be charitably perused, fairly weighed, and, if unsound,
honorably refuted! If the work be not animated with a mean or false

spirit, but be catholic and kindly, if it be not superficial and pretentious,
but be marked by patience and thoroughness, is it too much to hope that
no critic will assail it with wholesale condemnation simply because in
some parts of it there are opinions which he dislikes? One dispassionate
argument is more valuable than a shower of missile names. The most
vehement revulsion from a doctrine is not inconsistent, in a Christian
mind, with the sweetest kindness of feeling towards the persons who
hold that doctrine. Earnest theological debate may be carried on
without the slightest touch of ungenerous personality. Who but must
feel the pathos and admire the charity of these eloquent words of Henry
Giles?
"Every deep and reflective nature looking intently 'before and after,'
looking above, around, beneath, and finding silence and mystery to all
his questionings of the Infinite, cannot