beginning; but henceforth thine existence is, as a river which
earthquakes have divorced from its bed, and instead of flowing on for
ever through the fair pastures of peace and among the mountain roots of
everlasting righteousness, thy downward course is shattery, headlong,
turbulent, and destructive; black-throated whirlpools here, miasmatic
marshes there, a cataract, a shoal, a rapid; until the remorseless
stream, lashing among rocks which its own riot rendered sterile, pours
its unresting waters into the thirsty sands of the Sahara.

It was indeed probable (as since we know it to be true) that the
generous Giver of all things would in the vast majority of cases
minister such secret help to His weaker spiritual children, that, far
from failing of continuous obedience, they should find it so unceasingly
easier and happier that their very natures would soon come to be imbued
with that pervading habit: and that thus, the longer any creature stood
upright, the stronger should he rest in righteousness; until, at no very
distant period, it should become morally impossible for him to fall.
Such would soon be the condition of myriads, perhaps almost the whole,
of heaven's innumerable host: and with respect to any darker Unit in
that multitude, for the good of all permitted to make early shipwreck
of himself, simply by leaving his intelligence to plume its wings into
presumptuous flight, and by allowing his pristine goodness or wisdom to
grow rusty from non-usage until that sacred panoply were eaten into
holes; with respect to any such unhappy one, and all others (if others
be) who should listen to his glozing, and make a common cause in his
rebellion, where, I ask, is any injustice, or even unkindness done to
him by Deity? Where is any moral improbability that such a traitor
should be; or any just inconsistency chargeable on the attributes of God
in consequence of such his being? Whom can he in reason accuse but
himself for what he is? And what misery can such a one complain of,