are masters, while others are slaves, within the same set of circumstances. Human experience and observation, therefore, are ample on both sides of this question; and the consequence is, that doctors differ and erudite metaphysicians disagree; for Nature and truth are on both sides of this question also.

And we experience no conflict when so contemplating the answer. We perceive that man (i. e., mankind) is both Not every man The true man is

a Latitudinarian and a Necessitarian. indeed, but only he who is rounded out. self-poised, self-intentional, and grandly responsible for his conduct; and yet, here comes the paradox, he is perpetually obedient to the fixed laws of the Infinite.

The human individual's responsibility is commensurate with, or in proportion to, the mind's power to conceive of justice and freedom. He who seeth the way to do better and yet goeth not therein, moved thereto by his love of justice, is responsible to the Divine presence which worketh within both day and night. Let the gospel be full-spread everywhere, that Man, in the wondrous duality of his being, is forever a master over conditions, but a subject of the laws by which those conditions are generated. That is to say, Man is subject to the law of digestion, but he is, or should be, master, with respect to the conditions and kinds of food. Are you answered?

The Future of Present Acts.

CXXXII.-QUESTION: "A gentleman, resident in the City of Churches, a member of the richest congregation, asserted yesterday that your doctrine was dangerous, because it removed the restraining influence which Christianity throws around the sinner. Not being a reader of your philosophy, I could not deny his statement. Was he right?"

ANSWER: All true logic, as well as all philosophic religion, teaches the inseparableness of actions and their

consequences. To-day is the natural result of yesterday, to-morrow of to-day, the third day of to-morrow, and so forth through all the convolutions of eternity. In like manner we trace the conduct of yesterday through the moments of the present. Our philosophy is, that the deeds of a human being do not die with the body, but continue with the undying mind, until the full and legitimate effects have spent themselves upon and within the doer. The good act and the evil thought (not executed) will live, and bear fruit away over the grave. For the Spirit Land is but the natural sequence of this terrestrial habitation; just as tomorrow will be the natural successor of to-day. We ask,

"Can such things be,

And overcome us like a summer cloud,

Without our special wonder?"

One day, in conversation with a highly philosophical visitor from the other Sphere, we asked:

"Do you remember your earth-life?"

"A living man," he replied, "is the fruit of many earthly generations."

"How can this fact follow you into the spirit-world?" "Upon the same law," he answered, "as that by which you retain in memory the acts of yesterday."

"But the acts of yesterday are not all in my memory now, are they ?

"There is," he responded, "an essence of immortality in the life of every human act. It is this animus in the act which imparts an image thereof to the memory."

"Does this memory of earthly deeds disturb you in the midst of heavenly joys and physical beauties of the other life?"

"There is," he replied, "not a thought, not an act, or impulse, in the life of a human being, but starts a train of

effects and consequences which roll on and on through the most distant future, and nothing external can erase them from the memory."

"Do you remember the evil as well as the good? "Some natures recollect the causes and consequences of evil with even more distinctness than the good of their earthly lives."

"Indeed! upon them?"

What is the effect of such recollections

Effects vary with different temperaments and dispositions. Many spirits, by retrospections, realize how and where, while on earth, they cruelly and selfishly diminished the happiness of their fellow-men. Such are the the most unreconciled and discordant residents of the Spirit-Land." "Shall we never forget the earth-life?"

"Memory is eternal," he replied, "but in the vast future we recall only what was useful and good in the evil and imperfections of the lower sphere."

If our correspondent will present this doctrine of individual acts and consequences to the gentleman, and request him to consider the practical influence thereof when preached to the world, we are sure that a different conviction will pervade his mind with reference to our teachings. We believe in no vicarious atonement or forgiveness for crimes committed against the common humanity. An evil deed must continue to punish the doer, until he is lifted above the low state in which he committed it. There is no escape either in this world or in the spirit-land. Consequences will follow their producing causes, and death of the body cannot hinder the effects of this life extending into the next, any more than a night's sleep can obliterate the memory of the acts of the previous day.

The Nature and Purpose of Punishment. CXXXIII.—QUESTION: "Suppose punishment to be endless, as our evangelical ministers say it is, what can be the purpose of it?"

ANSWER: It is philosophically impossible for punishment to be interminable. The endless duration of punishment would utterly destroy the purposes of punishment. There can be but one beneficent object in punishment—that is, the improvement of the offender. If you afflict a man because he has afflicted you, the object is revenge or retaliation, the motive is low and despicable, and neither party is improved or corrected by the punishment.

The divine plan seems to be wholly beneficent, corrective, and reformatory. Punishment, in the divine system, is proportioned to the nature and magnitude of the offense. As no man can be guilty of an infinite transgression, so no man can be the victim of an infinite punishment. As there must be a commencement and an end to his violation, so must there be a beginning and a limitation to his suffering. Punishment means correction. How can endless correction be possible? The time must surely arrive when the end of the punishment is accomplished. Then the offender is relieved from the rigors of the penalty.

The theory of our modern pulpits, that individual human suffering for sin will be endless, is worthy of the dark ages. It unphilosophically teaches that punishment is nothing but vengeance, and that "hell" is the unventilated "black hole" of an avenging and malignant God. This doctrine will vanish in proportion to mankind's growth in reason and goodness.

The Probable Extinction of Hell.

CXXXIV.-QUESTION: "What can you say concerning the probable duration or ultimate extinguishment of the fires of the bottomless pit? Will you not present an argument from an orthodox point of view-that is, employ Bible-texts as the foundation of reasoning?"

ANSWER: We would gladly print our Brother's argument, and furnish Bible-texts to prove the probable extinction of hell, but we deem the treatment of the late Rev. E. M. Pingree sufficiently explicit: "In looking over Rev. Stephen Remington's Lectures on Universalism, a few days since, I was struck with the sentiment expressed on page 71. He there says on the word Gehenna, quoting from Greenfield's Greek Lexicon, the Valley of Hinnon, south of Jerusalem, once celebrated for the horrid worship of Moloch, &c., hell, the fires of Tartarus, the place of punishment in Hades.' And so said Dr. Ely, also. So then we learn that Gehenna is in Hades. Now the common orthodox believers suppose that Hades itself is hell, just as much as Gehenna; so that we have hell IN hell.

"But reading along to page 104, I was still more astonished at the following expression, in relation to the particulars' connected with the general judgment-day: 4. The abolition of death, or mortality, and hell, (Hades,) · the place for separate spirits, which will then be no longer needful; because soul and body will be reunited, never more to be separated.' And what follows from this? I asked myself as I read the sentence. The learned orthodox, I knew before, believed that Hades was to be abolished; but they also contended that Gehenna would exist forever, but now that Gehenna is IN Hades, and the latter place to be destroyed, what will become of the former? Who can tell? Will not that be abolished also? If so, where are your endless hell torments?

"It would not do to say that Gehenna, or in other words, that one hell will be preserved, when that hell is abolished in which it is located. To illustrate: If Hamilton County should be sunk, Cincinnati would be sunk also, because Cincinnati is in Hamilton County. Again: