"How very awful!"
"In such a case the tremendous catastrophe is expected; but now, let us think for a moment of a person passing out of one world to another (as many alas! do) under a delusive expectation of going to heaven; but on stepping out of time into eternity, he finds himself in hell. What must be his surprise; his terror-struck anguish; his fearful, his terrific exclamations of agonized woe; his condition, bearing some analogy, though infinitely more tremendous and appalling, to that of a culprit tried and cast for death, when in a trance, knowing nothing of the process or the issue, till he feels the minister of death adjusting the rope on the fatal platform; awakening up to a state of consciousness just before the drop falls. While in a trance, he might be moving amidst the congratulations of his family and his friends, to take possession of a newly bequeathed inheritance; with what terrific consternation would he, on recovering the use of his reason, find himself under the gallows of infamy, tied to its cross beam, the executioner by his side, stepping back to draw the bolt which is to give him to death struggles and to death."
"Your illustration is terrific; but it is not equal to the tremendous reality—a soul lost, when, under a fatal delusion, expecting to be saved."
We now came in sight of Fairmount, and that turned the current of our conversation to a more interesting theme. I remarked, "that I thought the country more favourable to devotional feeling than the city. The gaiety and the bustle of the one distract the mind; whereas the quietude of the other composes it."
"True, Sir, but the spirit of devotion would soon languish beside the murmuring stream, or beneath the silent shade, unless invigorated by the unction which cometh from above. If we, who live in the country, have fewer temptations than those who live in cities, yet in general we have fewer religious advantages; and though not altogether deprived of the society of Christian friends, yet it is but seldom that we are surrounded by a sufficient number to admit of making a selection."
On entering the parlour, Mr. Stevens soon joined us, and seemed much interested by the report of our morning's excursion. Having partaken of a plain dinner, he and I adjourned to a sequestered arbour, at the extreme point of his shrubbery, where we sat conversing the greater part of the afternoon. "Mr. Roscoe," he observed, "to whom you were introduced this morning, is a most interesting companion. He is a man of very extensive reading, of deep and close reflection, of a fine taste, very benevolent in disposition, of strict integrity, and very religious in his own way. He is rather too fond of disputation, and there is no subject which he likes to discuss more than the subject of religion, though I think he does not understand it so well as he does many others."
"Is he fond of introducing religious subjects in conversation?"
"Very."
"Does he introduce them merely for discussion, or in relation to their practical tendency?"
"Why, his uniform design, if I may be permitted to judge of his motive, is to excite a general feeling of disgust against what he calls the Methodistical or Calvinistic delusions of the age, which he regards as more injurious to our national character, and more destructive to our happiness, than even the spirit of infidelity itself."