"A pretty specimen, this," thought Alice, "of the ignorance and intolerance in religion, with which churches that take a high stand for sanctity of character, quite sufficiently abound! And I more than suspect that the root of all this uncharitableness lies in the doctrinal principles on which these churches are based."Alice was right—but coming from her, reared as she had been, in fanaticism, it was a large and serious concession. Facts, however, abundantly justified it. She could not but observe, that under much exterior devoutness, and connected with much scrupulosity in the observance of times and ordinances, there was in the people of her faith a too general absence of the more substan tial and fundamental virtues of religion. She could no longer think that these evil fruits of a bad faith were local, with regard to the persons exhibiting them, for a very recent letter from Connecticut, written at the request of her parents by their minister, convinced her that there also a gloomy theology generated in its possessors a spirit like itself. The letter referred to, appeared to have been despatched in great haste, and expressed very great solicitude, which had, it seems, been awakened on her behalf by the perusal of the one she had written. "I was immediately aware," so it ran, "though your parents were not, that your immortal soul was in the utmost danger, from the fact that you had most unfortunately fallen in with a community of universalists, a people more to be avoided than deists or atheists, because they affect to found their faith on the scriptures, and possess a fatal talent for giving a plau sible face to their impious and blasphemous tenets; I, therefore, in the name of your parents, and in consideration of your own precious eternal interests, solemnly charge you to shun them, as you would the pit of perdition! You talk of their social and moral virtues; by as much as they seem to possess these, are they the more to be dreaded, for even the arch fiend can, when it suits his purpose, transform himself into an angel of light.' You must therefore not take them for what they seem to be, but for what in fact they are, enemies to God, and to the souls of men. Their doctrine is the siren's song: it lulls the soul, by its bewitching melody, into a slumber from which many thousands of its votaries, it is to be feared, have been awaked at last by the fires that never shall be quenched. It may do to live by, but to persons of that class, the language of the poet will apply with peculiar truth.

'Fools men may live, but fools they seldom die.'

"It is rarely known that men die universalists. I hope you will pardon the freedom of this advice, and believe me to be your sincere well wisher for time and eternity. ZACCHEUS FEARON."

To this letter several postscripts were appended by different members of the family, with whom it had been left unsealed for that purpose. I will here insert but one of these, from our heroine's youngest sister, an arch and playful girl; it is as follows:

"P. S. Who the mischief are these universalists of whom parson Fearon speaks? do they look like folk, Alice? We have prayers put up in our church for all sorts of heathen; Mahometans, Hottentots, and the like; but I never heard universalists prayed for yet, therefore I think their chance for heaven is very slim, don't you, Alice? If you should ever leave our church, do turn Pagan, for every spare rag and rye-straw about here is being turned into money, to pay the way for their salvation. So no more at present, from one who never saw your soul, but loves your body dreadful well. CHARITY SHERWOOD."

In all respects Alice admired the inhabitants of Universalia, with the exception that they were less serious and devout in their general demeanor than comported with her ideas of piety; she remarked upon this defect to a very intimate companion of hers (the taller of the two young ladies described in chapter 3.) and inquired how she would account for it. "Simply, my dear Alice," was the answer, "by considering the true nature and ends of the religion of Christ. Does it not communicate glad tidings? and is it not in the nature of things for these to infuse joy into the heart? and when the spirit is joyful, will not the countenance be bathed in its light? Why, I have seen persons in the act of uniting themselves to churches termed christian, and the forms of induction were of so sombre a character, that by the time they were gone through with, the subjects, in look and bearing, resembled culprits who had been consigned over to the executioner. Surely, they or I greatly mistake the character of this religion: I identify it with all that is beautiful and happifying in morals-all that is magnanimous in action. I connect with it no hollow and driveling affectation of self-abasement, for the office of christianity is to

elevate man-not to trample down his spirit, his dignity, and his hopes, and" "You are preaching again, my dear J————," interrupted Alice, "so I must call you down to the level of ordinary conversation. Of one thing I am satisfied in regard to your religion, Mr. Fearon's declaration to the contrary notwithstanding; it will do to die by-for to that fact I have witnessed several examples since I have sojourned with you here." "I will furnish you with the account of another, and very striking one,” said Miss J. "It is contained in a letter from a young minister in our connection to my uncle."

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She took the letter from her scrip, and read the account as follows: "I was last week riding in fulfilment of a round of appointments, when I met a young man and woman in a dearborn, with a coffin between them, which, on our stopping to converse, they informed me contained the corpse of a sister of theirs, in her 19th year, who had deceased at the house of another sister in Mt. Pleasant, and they were taking the corpse to inter it in the family burial place. 'Could you not officiate on the occasion?' they inquired. I informed them it was not possible, and inquired how it happened that I was applied to? when I had always understood the young woman to be of a very different faith. So she was till within a month or two of her death,' was the reply, and it grieved her sister, in whose house she died, very much, that she should adopt your faith at so critical a time.' But so it was-one minister was sent for after another by her friends, to effect a change in her views, but in vain. Reasoning and threatening were equally ineffectual. I have been living,' she would say as you all know, in daily expectation of death for the last five months—I have in that time reflected much on religion. Without other aid than that of my bible, I have settled into my present persuasion-and can you now think to frighten me out of opinions which have been adopted under such circumstances? It cannot be; I am immoveably made up to die in them!" I knew there was a little society of universalists in the place where she died, composed of some most estimable persons, and I inquired whether her sister was so hard-hearted as not to send for one of them. They informed me, that, on the contrary, the poor young woman was kept as ignorant as possible of the very existence of such a society. Oh! what

would I not have given to have been but one hour by her dying pillow! that I might have dilated upon that impartial and unbounded love, to whose hands in that trying juncture she was so calmly entrusting her all of hope and happiness for ever. But she died alone, poor girl! Still it was a consolation to me to know, that her faith proved equal to the severe trial to which it was subjected."-" Let me interrupt your reading here," said Alice; “supposing they could have extorted from the fears of the dying girl a retraction of her principles, what object would they have gained? would such retraction, wrung from her weakness, have atoned for errors deliberately adopted in the strength of her faculties ?" “If, by any means," answered Miss F.," they could have succeeded in wringing from her a denial of her faith, they would thereby have accomplished an important party purpose; the circumstance would have been loudly trumpeted forth as an evidence that the Universalist belief will not do to die by.' I have known the death-beds of the young and inexperienced to be haunted for this special end! Still, we may adopt a more charitable view of their conduct: their efforts may have been stimulated by the weak supposition that the Creator will damn mortals for their errors of opinion! a supposition which does great injustice to his character, unquestionably. But we will proceed with the letter" * "At a conference prayermeeting in the town, on the sabbath evening following this melancholy incident, a self-conceited sprig of divinity arose, and after the usual groans and distortions of countenance, delivered himself to the following effect. 'My friends, the young woman who was interred in our grave-yard a few days since, and who died in rebellion against God, and rejection of his truth, was offered a conveyance to a protracted meeting some time before her decease, but she refused to avail of it, and now-Oh!-Oh!Oh!-she's gone where protracted-meeting opportunities will no more be afforded her!'

*

*

"And who, think you, was this young saint? what were his pretensions? I will state a fact from which you may judge. He had had the charge of the school in that district, but was deprived of the same about a month before the delivery of the above recorded speech, for having repeatedly taken indelicate

C

liberties with the young females entrusted to his care! This is an unexaggerated truth."

*

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*

"I have known,” said our heroine, "just such lumpish boobies in Connecticut; and they could deliver themselves quite as edifyingly in conference prayer-meetings. That is a species of meeting to which I was accustomed at home from my infancy; and for as long back as I can remember, Deacon Snaffle invariably took the lead in it. I doubt if he once failed in all that time, to thank the Lord, that while others who are as good by nature as we are, and much better by practice, are trying the a-w-e-ful realities of eternity, we continue to be the spa-red monuments of thy dis-tin-guish-ing grace and mercy.' The good man's voice was so cracked, that its sounds wonderfully resembled the monotonous jingle of a cow-bell. I have often checked my sister Charity, for nicknaming him ‘Old Brindle,' which was the name of a favourite bell-cow of ours. Old Brindle,' she would say, ⚫ wants to make out that hell contains better folk than we are! I'm sure then it can't want for good society. But what are we to think of our Creator's justice, if he does indeed damn many, who are much better than others whom he saves?' We could none of us answer the questions of the playful girl; so we all united in chiding her for what we termed her wickedness in asking them." 99 "There is an admirable stoicism," said Miss J-. "in our manner of talking about hell, and its inhabitants. Our bigotry damns men very liberally, and saves them very sparingly. Woe to us all if our Creator were as indifferent to our eternal interests as we seem to be to those of one another! My grandfather, the old squire, who, like most old people, is very garrulous, often entertains me with the Scotchman's prayer:

'Lord bless me and my wife,
My son John and his wife;

Us four,

No more, my Lord, I care for no more.""

CHAPTER VI.

WERE you ever present, reader, at an universalist association ? If you were, you need not that I describe one to you; if not, my advice to you is that you witness one for yourself as soon as pos