Ed. Journal:— The following clipping from "The Brooklyn Daily Times" of Sept. 16th, is too good to be lost. Use as you think proper.—
The Christian Leader makes a contribution of more than common interest to the current writings about Whittier in the republication of a letter addressed to one of its editors some years ago in response to an invitation to attend one of the Anniversary Week meetings of the Universalist Church. Mr. Whittier explained that the coincident meeting of the Friends at Amesbury would prevent him from accepting the invitation, but he accompanied his reply with this valuable statement of his own religious views:—
I recognize the importance of the revolt of your religious society from the awful dogma of predestined happiness for the few and damnation for the many, though, in the outset, that revolt brought with it some of the old fatalistic belief in the arbitrary will and power of the Almighty. Assuming that a favored few can be saved by a divine decree, irrespective of any merit on their part, it was logical at least to suppose that all might be saved in the same way. If I mistake not, this view has been greatly modified by the consideration that the natural circumstance of death cannot make any real change of character; that no one can be compelled to be good or evil; that freedom of choice belongs to both worlds, and that sin is, by its very nature, inseparable from suffering. I am not accustomed to attach very great importance to speculative opinions, and am not disposed to quarrel with any creed which avoids the danger, on one hand, of attributing implacable vengeance and cruelty to the Heavenly Father, and on the other of underrating the "exceeding sinfulness of sin," and its baleful consequences.
