WE are passing away, we are passing away,
To a visionless sleep and a couch of clay;
Like the light of the stars before the sun,
We are fading and vanishing one by one;
Like twilight hues of a summer's day,
We are passing away, we are passing away!

We are passing away from a world of care,
Like flowers which bloom on the desert air;
Like bubbles which swell on the running stream,
Like the shadowy visions of fancy's dream,
Like the transient flash of the meteor's ray,
We are passing away, we are passing away!

We are passing away, while hope's sweet smile,'
And visions of bliss the light hours beguile;
While our young hearts beat in their careless mirth,
We are passing away from this sunny earth;
Like first blown flowers of an April day,
We are passing away, we are passing away!

We are passing away and returning again

To the clod of the vale and the dust of the plain;
Like storm driven barks to some desolate shore,

We are hastening on to be seen no more;

With no hope of return, yet no power to stay-
We are passing away, we are passing away;

We are passing away, with the spring's bright flowers,
We are passing away in the summer hours,
With the autumn leaf and the winter snows,
We are passing away to our last repose;

In the silence of night and the bustle of day,
We are passing away, we are passing away!

We are passing away with the kings of the earth,
With the mighty in power and the proud of birth;
With the maiden in youthful beauty bright,
With her sigh of love, and her eye of light;
And Age with his time-thinn'd locks of grey,
We are passing away, we are passing away!

The minstrel forsakes his ivy crown,

And goes to the mansion of silence down;
The warrior lays by his blood-stain'd wreath,

And proudly retires to his couch of death;

With the great and the brave, and the fair and the gay,

We are passing away, we are passing away!

There blooms not a flower when the summer glows,

Beneath which the dead do not repose;

There is not a spot on hill nor in dale,

Which in days gone by hath not had its tale

Of one who in beauty's bright array

Has pass'd like a dream of the heart away.

There peers not a star through the evening's gloom
For which our fair earth could not number a tomb;
There is not a breeze which flies over the heath,
But it bears on its pinions the sigh of death,
And kingdoms and cities have pass'd away,
Where the coral bends and the billows play.

We are passing away; but let's not grieve
The changeable scenes of this world to leave;
But oh! let us cherish that hope whose light
Will guide us in safety through death's dark night,
To the regions of changeless and fadeless bloom,
Beyond the sky and beyond the tomb!

THE

WILLENNIAL HARBINGER,

NEW SERIES.

VOLUME II.- -NUMBER XI.

BETHANY, VA. NOVEMBER, 1838.

Discussion of Universalism.
MR. SKINNER TO MR. CAMPBELL'

Dear Sir

No. XXXIII.

UTICA, September 7, 1838.

My "philosophic limb," as you are pleased to term my scriptural arguments, occasions you a great deal of trouble. You can do nothing with it till you have first distorted and shaped it over anew in your 26th letter. When a man in controversy has to manufacture the arguments of his opponent, it is a pretty sure sign that he cannot refute those that his opponent himself adduces.

99

2. You say my four grand assumptions are, "1. That punishment and chastisement are but two names for one idea. 2. That all punishment necessarily terminates in the reformation of its subjects. 3. That punishment is never properly exemplary, &c. 4. That punishment is not necessary for the honor of the Governor of the universe," &c. That these assumptions "are all false," and hence I "very prudently" am "content simply to assert them.' When and where have I ever asserted them? No where-they are not to be found in any part of this discussion, nor any other writings of mine. In relation to the first, I have maintained, and do maintain, that punishment and chastisement, if not always, are often used synonymously-that the word rendered punishment, Matth. xxv. 46. means chastisement, and that God chastens all for their profit that they may be partakers of his holiness. Heb. xii. 5-11: Psalm lxxxix. 30-35: 1 Cor. iii. 13-15, and their numerous parallels.

3. Your definition of punishment, viz. "penalty or pain for transgression without any regard to what the issue of that pain or penalty may be," is quite as descriptive of the unfeeling revenge of the savage, as of the righteous administration of our heavenly Father's government. You, however, admit that punishment "may always have three objects in view: 1st. The glory and honor of the Lawgiver; 2d. The good of the offending subject; and 3d. The guardianship and defence of the unoffending.' "Something in other words is due to the King, to the subject, and to his fellows on every transgression."

4, Thus, sir, you have completely overthrown your favorite doctrine of endless wo. The above language can never be reconciled with endless punishment till you can show that such punishment is for "the good of the offending subject." But this can never be done. Your doctrine of endless torment supposes the King shall never be honored by the obedience of the subject-that the subject shall be tormented with no other view but that of revenge, and that his fellow-beings shall only be permitted to witness an endless Auto de fe! I believe the Lawgiver Shall be honored by the ultimate obedience of his subjects-that the subject shall be justly punished, and yet subdued, and that the fellows of the punished shall behold and admire the blended justice and the mercy of the administration.

5. In your 5th paragraph you speak about satan and his rebel hosts in the other world suffering six thousand years of banishment from the presence of God. But what do you know about satan? who is he? what is he? Who made him, and for what purpose? or is he selfexistent, omnipotent, omnipresent, &c.? What do you know about his hosts in the other world! You say you have facts against my hypothesis. What are those facts, and how proved? Neither John Milton nor A. Campbell is sufficient authority for facts relating to the other world.

6. Your 6th paragraph is a strange medley of assumptions and misapplied scriptures. What does John say, Rev. xxii. about "the final assemblage of God's elect into the eternal city"? Nothing at all. What does he say about sorcerers, idolators, &c. having their evil characters indelibly fixed? Nothing; nor is any such sentiment intimated, in all the Bible. Paul speaks of some such characters, 1 Cor. vi. 9-11. and says to his Corinthian brethren, "And such WERE some of you; bot ye are washed-sanctified-justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God." And no intimation is given but what those mentioned Rev. xxii. 15. might be with all others finally sanetified in like manner.

7. Again, you declare, "Solomon also said, 'In hades, or the world of spirits, there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom,” &c. I beg your pardon, sir, Solomon never said any such thing. If he had, it would be equally fatal both to your theory and mine. For where there is no "knowledge nor wisdom," there can be neither happiness nor misery, and universal annihilation, or unconsciousness, must be the result. The truth is, Solomon said nothing about "the world of spirits." He spake of hades, the grave, or state of the dead, (i. e. of the body in the grave,) without any reference to the condition of the soul or spirit. Thus all your false assumptions, witticisms, and sarcasms that follow your perversion of Eccl. ix. 10. are pointless and out of place.

8. Your 7th paragraph is equally irrelevant: for in the first place you attempt to refute what I have never argued, and in the next place you atterly fail in that attempt. For though punishment is often designed more directly to be exemplary, yet when inflicted by the Divine Being it is not incompatible with the final good of the sufferers themselves. This is proved first, by the fact that God says he took away Sodom and Gomorrah "as he saw good." But no being could see any good ia merely transplanting them from a state of temporal sinning and suffering to one of greater and endless sinning and suffering: consequently the latter

is not true. Second, By the fact that the final reformation and restoration of those wicked people is clearly predicted in the 16th chapter of Ezekiel. Third, By the fact that the text you quote from Isa. lxvi. speaks only of temporal punishments; and fourth, By the express testimony of scripture, Ps. lxxxix. 30--35: Matt. xxiii. 38, 39: Hos. v. 9--15. and numerous other passages.

9. In your 8th and 11th paragraphs you charge me with having been once identified with a class of Universalists from whom I am now separated, and of apostatizing from my brethren of the school of genuine Universalism, &c. &c. Be it known to you I have never altered my distinguishing sentiments since I publicly avowed my faith in a world's salvation; and I am now connected with all and with just such Universalists as I ever have been since that period. It is not my business to defend opinions that I never held; nor does it become you to misrepresent and scandalize opinions that you have never been able to refute. Recollect, sir, your business and mine is with the questions at issue between us. But you seem disposed to enter upon any thing and every thing but the questions. And you seem altogether better versed in the school of Heathenism, with "the fabled Nine," and "passages through Avernus," with "Orcus," and "limbus purgatorius," than with the momentous theological questions before you.

10. The first part of your 9th paragraph is an entire misrepresentation. I hold that God can and does punish the sinner, and in that punishment benevolently unites "the honor of his own throne," "the sinner's good," and "the good of his other subjects." You ask, "For what did Christ suffer through life? and for what did he die?" I answer, in the language of scripture, "For the joy set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame," &c. "God commendeth his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." He died, "that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage."—"For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted."

11. In your 10th paragraph you say you can see no use that I have for any Christ, Bible, preacher, faith, hope, &c. The old maxim runs, "There's none so blind as those that won't see, and none so deaf as those that won't hear." I will tell you what use I have not for a Christ, Bible, faith, &c. I have no use for them to placate an implacable divinity, to ward off omnipotent wrath, to screen man from the justice of God, or from deserved punishment, to make God friendly to man, to save him from endless hell, (with which he was never threatened,) nor for any similar purpose. To me, however, their utility is incomparably great and precious. They acquaint me with God, my Father and my Friend. They reveal his love and win my affection for and reconciliation to him. They wean me, while I follow their dictates, from the love, and dominion, and bondage of sin and error. They bring life and immortality to light, rob death of its terrors, give hope as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, and impart to the mind, life, peace and joy unspeakable and full of glory. Are these all useless trifles?. Other blessings too numerous to name here, I derive from the same blessed medium.

12. You but faintly state the two fundamental truths of Calvinism

and Arminianism. But faintly as you state them you cannot refute them. It is true, as the Arminian holds, that God wills the salvation of all men, and as the Calvinist holds, that he will save all he wills to save, and "worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." The Arminian sentiment is equally true, that Christ “tasted death for every man," and "gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time," and likewise the Calvinistic sentiment, that he did not die in vainthat he will save all he died for, and "see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied." Pray, sir, be so good as to refute the united strength of Arminianism and Calvinism, and you will have effectually refuted Universalism.

13. Either letter I have written of this whole series is a sufficient refutation of your 13th paragraph. Where have I, (as you charge me from your 14th to 20th paragraphs inclusive,) sought to "derogate from the heinousness of sin," or represented it as "a mere peccadillo, a speck, a cutaneous sore, a frailty, a momentary evil," &c? You know I have never done it, nor attempted it-these are terms of your own invention. But, sir, let me ask, do you not deceive mankind, by representing sin greater than it really is, and its punishment to be beyond the dictates of either nature, reason or revelation, and thus weaken the restraints upon sin by begetting in the sinner a latent scepticism in regard to the infliction of such penalties? I think you do. Threaten a child with cutting off his head for accidentally breaking a tumbler, and he will not believe nor heed the threat; but tell him he will receive a just punishment for his carelessness, and he will both believe and heed you. There is, sir, much latent scepticism in the world on the subject of endless punishment, even among those educated in the sentiment. It looks to them so unreasonable and disproportioned to their deeds that they do not believe they themselves will suffer it. But threaten them with a more reasonable and consistent penalty, and they will believe.

14. You call the doctrine that "sin is an infinite evil," the "doctrine of other days and of other men," charge me with injustice in attributing it to you, and then go to work with all your might to prove the doctrine true! The questions you ask, to prove it, are extremely sophistical. Your query, paragraph 15, is founded on a case that is not supposable. If man here were immortal, he could not be killed; if not immortal he would die without being killed. You ask again, “If A rob B of a thousand pounds, has not B lost it forever?" Yes, in that sense of forever, i. e. during life, (unless he should regain it, which is not impossible,) but not for eternity; because he could have held it only during life, if he had not been robbed. The congressional conspirators and murderers of my Universalist brother Cilley, (if he were a Universalist, which is doubtful,) deprived his wife of her husband and his children of their father only for life, (or the period he would have lived had he not been murdered,) and not for eternity. And though those murderers were as orthodox in the faith of endless damnation as yourself, the act was but finite, and its punishment must have an end.

15. The Bible does not speak of, nor do I believe in, any sin that is to remain unexpiated. To give you back your own language, I will say, "Sir, it is an insult to reason and the God of reason,' to suppose "that he should have instituted such an expiatory remedial system" as that of the mission, and labors, and sufferings, and gospel of Christ,