In answering this last, it is to be remembered that the question is not one of fact as to the depraved action of mind, but of the philosophy of this fact, or the cause of this wrong action. A man may not be able to form any satisfactory theory on this question, and be content, as the early Christians used to be, to remain without one. The repudiation of the Augustinian theory does not necessarily involve the adoption of any other, while it does remove insurmountable difficulties from just and generous minds in accepting the Bible as of Divine authority while encumbered with what seems so contrary both to the moral sense and the common sense of mankind.
It has been the privilege of the author all her life to be intimately associated, by family and other connections, with the ministers of religion in a variety of denominations—those intelligent, excellent, and pious men who, more than any other class, can understand that heavy burden of spirit connected with that awful subject, the eternal loss of the human soul.
Before closing, they will permit a few inquiries in reference to this subject. The almost universal cessation of "revivals" of religion, the diminished attendance of the masses on Sabbath worship, the decrease in the relative proportion of the ministry, the diminution of spirituality and the consequent laxness in the Church, the increase of skepticism and infidelity of various grades, the terrific rush of worldliness on all classes, as wealth, and luxury, and temptations of all kinds abound, are not all these signs of the times of fearful import, foreshadowing either some dreadful judgments, or the advent of some moral forces that are appropriate to such a crisis?
In this position of the moral world, is it to be supposed that theology alone, of all departments of science, has reached its culminating point, so that there is no possibility of improvement? Is there not manifestly needed far more powerful motives than any now wielded to stop the inrushing tide of worldliness? In former times, when revivals abounded, it was the principle of fear that was first appealed to with such wonderful results. But where now are such appeals made as once shook men's consciences with fears of "the wrath to come?"
If such preaching abounds in any quarter of our nation, where is it? In all her travels the writer finds it wanting, and the testimony of others is similar.
Here, now, is the great question: Could the ministry now preach the distinctive theories of Calvinism, and at the same time those awful views of the eternal loss of the soul, warranted by Scripture language, with any prospect of being sustained by the moral sentiments of the great body of benevolent and intelligent hearers? Would not some be driven to reckless worldliness, others to infidelity, others to Universalism, others to another style of preaching, till the remainder could scarcely maintain any preaching at all? Is not this perceived and felt by many ministers, and is not this one great reason why that terrible doctrine, on which the whole Gospel is based, is now so hidden or so slightly recognized in the pulpit ministrations?
And yet, to the writer, it seems that this very doctrine, so plain and awful in Holy Writ, could be so drawn forth by the light of reason alone as to furnish a power of motive now almost unwielded. It seems as if the terrible exhibitions of this volume in the chapters on Habit, and on the Wrong Action of Mind in a Future State, might be wrought out by a man of talent and eloquence so as to draw such audiences as once thronged around Whitfield, and with equal results. What, then, could be done with the added power of revelation, dissevered from obstructing theories?
When the writer looks back on her own mental history for the last thirty years, and feels how every step of her life, during the whole of that period, has been regulated by the overmastering pressure of this tremendous subject, and when she is sure that a conviction that no such awful dangers beset our race would bring her life on to just that level where so many Christians complain that they find themselves, the query will often arise whether ministers who say so little about the matter, and those professed Christians who act so little in consistence with it, really do believe it? And yet, when her own difficulties in expressing all that has been thought and felt are recalled, it is understood how others too may have been equally embarrassed and restrained.
In regard to the main topics of this work, is not every minister called to decide, practically, between these two theories?