“You have been correctly informed. Universalism is only another name for the gospel. ‘A rose,’ you know, ‘by any other name would smell as sweet.’”
“Sweet! Universalism the gospel! It is neither sweet nor the gospel. It is a loathsome spawn from hell, the meanest of all the devil’s mean works, and you ought not to be allowed to teach it to immortal souls. I would put a stop to such preaching had I the power.”
“Very likely you would, for you look like a villain. The mark of the beast is on you, and you would, doubtless, like to be about your master’s business. The world has been cursed a long time with the spirit you possess, and with men of your character, and that spirit, and that breed are not yet dead. Bigots and hypocrites like you, nailed the Savior of man to the cross, stoned Stephen, murdered the apostles, and crucified, burnt, hung, beheaded, and quartered, the saints of God in all ages.”
“If I believed as you do, I would take my fill of sin.”
“You are full of sin now.”
“What do you preach for?”
“To reform such men as you. You may think you are a Christian of the first water, but you know nothing about Christianity. The name of its Author is Love, and Christianity corresponds, letter and spirit, with that blessed word. But what do you know about love? and what does your fiery creed know about love? But you know what hate means, and you would pursue all with fire and sword who do not kneel at your shrine. I pray God that you may be converted, that you may know the meaning of love, mercy, goodness, justice, know that they do not signify hatred, cruelty, vengeance, and that God is served when we obey the law of love, not when we hate and devour each other.”
On board of a steamboat, on the Ohio river, I participated in the following conversation:
“I am free to acknowledge, that I cannot reconcile endless misery with the goodness of God, and yet I have to believe in that doctrine.”
“Others have admitted the same. The celebrated Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great moralist of the last century, admitted that God cannot be infinitely good to the victims of ceaseless woe—so Boswell tells us. We judge of a person’s character by his works. If his works are evil, we infer his character is evil; if his works are good, we infer that his character is good. We are safe in judging of God’s character by the same criterion. If he has built an everlasting hell, and will consign his own offspring to its dismal vaults, to be the victims of Almighty wrath, world without end, and all for the errors of a day, it is utterly impossible for Him to be good, much less, infinitely good. Goodness seeks the welfare, not the ruin, of the subjects of its power.”