land, laying out a farm, and building a house,--and were then to die,
I should leave my work to my successors, and it would not be lost.
Some men work for higher, some for lower, earthly ends; ("in a great
house there are many vessels, &c.;") but all the results are valuable,
if there is a chance of transmitting them to those who follow us.
But if all is to be very shortly burnt up, it is then folly to exert
ourselves for such objects. To the dead man, (it is said,) the cases
are but one. This is to the purpose, if self absorbs all our heart;
away from the purpose, if we are to work for unselfish ends.

Nothing can be clearer, than that the New Testament is entirely
pervaded by the doctrine,--sometimes explicitly stated, sometimes
unceremoniously assumed,--that earthly things are very speedily to
come to an end, and _therefore_ are not worthy of our high affections
and deep interest. Hence, when thoroughly imbued with this persuasion,
I looked with mournful pity on a great mind wasting its energies on
any distant aim of this earth. For a statesman to talk about providing
for future generations, sounded to me as a melancholy avowal of
unbelief. To devote good talents to write history or investigate
nature, was simple waste: for at the Lord's coming, history and
science would no longer be learned by these feeble appliances of ours.
Thus an inevitable deduction from the doctrine of the apostles, was,
that "we must work for speedy results only." Vitæ summa brevis spem
nos vetat inchoare longam. I _then_ accepted the doctrine, in profound
obedience to the absolutely infallible system of precepts. I _now_ see
that the falsity and mischief of the doctrine is one of the very many
disproofs of the assumed, but unverified infallibility. However,
the hold which the apostolic belief then took of me, subjected my
conscience to the exhortations of the Irish clergyman, whenever he
inculcated that the highest Christian must necessarily decline the