enhancing of the desire that the will of God--a will synonymous with
goodness and truth--may be done on earth. But what relation to all this
has a system of interpretation which keeps the mind of the Christian in
the position of a spectator at a gladiatorial show, of which Satan is
the wild beast in the shape of a great red dragon, and two thirds of
mankind the victims--the whole provided and got up by God for the
edification of the saints?

She calls Dr. Cumming's teachings "the natural crop of a human mind where
the soil is chiefly made up of egoistic passions and dogmatic beliefs."
Then she deals with that belief in this trenchant fashion:

Happily, the constitution of human nature forbids the complete
prevalence of such a theory. Fatally powerful as religious systems have
been, human nature is stronger and wider than religious systems, and
though dogmas may hamper, they cannot absolutely repress its growth:
build walls around the living tree as you will, the bricks and mortar
have by and by to give way before the slow and sure operation of the
sap. But next to the hatred of the enemies of God which is the
principle of persecution, there perhaps has been no perversion more
obstructive of true moral development than this substitution of a
reference to the glory of God for the direct promptings of the
sympathetic feelings. Benevolence and justice are strong only in
proportion as they are directly and inevitably called into activity by
their proper objects; pity is strong only because we are strongly
impressed by suffering; and only in proportion as it is compassion that
speaks through the eyes when we soothe, and moves the arm when we
succor, is a deed strictly benevolent. If the soothing or the succor be
given because another being wishes or approves it, the deed ceases to
be one of benevolence, and becomes one of deference, of obedience, of