OR, UNIVERSALISM THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY. BY REV. M. J. STEERE. "I have for a long time been thinking that a few years only will suffice "The thinking portion of the church are the doubting portion, in refer BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JAMES M. USHER, 37 Cornhill, 1861. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by JAMES M. USHER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. INTRODUCTION. Practical Questions - Object of this Volume and Origin of it Love, the way to Heaven That way obstructed - Church must clear it -Church's slow progress, and when it will be swifter Demand of Christian Civilization - Tides of Popularity changing Conservatives alarmed - Discussion Discouraged -Proofs demanded Discussion will come and is safe. What is the condition of the dead? With what emotions should they be contemplated? With what feelings should we go to join them? These are eminently practical questions, in which interest is every day becoming more intense. And this, not simply in view of the fresh graves of yesterday, but of all the desolations of mortality which have made the earth one vast grave-yard, in which human dust is disturbed by every furrow of the plow ! The ancient question, "If a man die shall he live," is put beyond Christian controversy by that Scripture which saith, "There shall be a resurrection both of the just and the unjust. But what of this certified resurrection life? Is it a blessing, or a curse? The view has long prevailed that it is a blessing to some and a curse to others. The view is now prevailing that it is a blessing to all. And it is to awaken attention to the relative value of these views, that this volume is published. It is the outgrowth of an experience somewhat peculiar, and may therefore at least add to the variety of Christian literature. The material of which it is composed had been for some time accumulating as the result of private meditations along the way of religious enquiry. Such as it is, it is committed in humble trust to the wise providence of Him who smiles upon every effort to clear Love's way to his Throne. And to that throne Love is the only way,- that Love, of which, obedience is the outflow. Hence Jesus makes all the Law and the prophets hang upon Love, while his chief apostle urges that all the obedience that lacks Love, "profiteth nothing." But Love is neither blind nor coercible. And because it must act in reference to the quality of its object, none should grumble at its seeming obstinacy. To ask Love for what seems unlovable, is to ask a simple impossibility; and this, equally, whether the object be earthy or heavenly, a creature or the creator. Well, therefore, did an English statesman |