And yet, in the smallest sphere of life, between every individual and his neighbors, thousands of questions of right and wrong turn on how our words and actions will affect the happiness of those around; and there is no possibility of settling such questions but by leaving every person at liberty to communicate freely what does, or does not, give them pain or pleasure, and thus teach others how to make happiness and save from pain. In order to this, it is indispensable that every one be made to understand that our chief aim is to make happiness the best and right way, and that for this end we wish to have a perfectly free expression of wishes and opinions. For if it is perceived that irritability and alienation result from such a course, all those around us will conceal their feelings and opinions, and thus, for want of a true knowledge of circumstances, we shall “walk in darkness,” because we are not willing to be told the truths that put us in the wrong or expose our mistakes.

In carrying out this principle, there must be discretion exercised as to time and manner of performing the duty; and there are some limitations to be recognized, which are matters of expediency. For example, a man must seek the best time to expose what is wrong, and he must seek to do it in a manner that will secure the good aimed at with the least possible evil. And if it can be done better by the agency of another, the aid of that other should be invoked.

So in regard to limitations, what is strictly personal should be confined to the party who alone is concerned. What relates solely to the family concerns should be confined to the family. Nor should any wrongs or dissensions be brought before the public except those in which the public welfare is involved.

But with these limitations it is the demand of reason and common sense, that every man, woman and child freely protest against all that they believe to be wrong in opinion or conduct.

In taking such a course, every man's success in discovering and propagating the truth will depend very much on the spirit with which it is attempted. If it is done in a self-sufficient, dictatorial, and denunciatory mode, the inevitable result will be to arouse those passions and prejudices which are most effectual in blinding the mind in discovering truth.

If, on the contrary, it is attempted with the humility, meekness and benevolence which are befitting ignorant, fallible and short-sighted beings, encompassed with such appalling difficulties and dangers, the most favorable of all influences will be exerted to secure a patient and candid attention.

Still, so sensitive are men to all implications of their motives or conduct, so unwilling are they to acknowledge themselves mistaken, that the faithful discharge of the duty of protesting against wrong, will always be attended with more or less of ill-will and bad passions.

In view of the above, if we were to predict what would be the first preliminary teaching of a messenger from the Creator imparting to us the true way of happiness-making, we should say, reasoning from the experience of life, it would read thus:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit;” that is, those who feel their poverty of mind as to the knowledge required for right action.

“Blessed are they that mourn;” that is, those who are troubled by this want.

“Blessed are the meek;” that is, those that can quietly and patiently bear reproof and fault-finding.

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness;” that is, those who are as earnest to find the right way of happiness-making as the hungry and thirsty are for food and drink.

To illustrate this point on a humble scale, let it be supposed that a vast and dangerous morass is filled with a multitude of travelers, of all ages and all degrees of intelligence, who can press through it to their homes only by difficult, dark, and circuitous paths. In addition to its morasses, pit-falls, swamps and fens, each path is beset with venomous reptiles, and its woods with ferocious beasts, while it is the young and tender who are the special objects of pursuit to these terrific foes. In such a community, and amid such dangers, all decisions of right and wrong, as to what was owed to others or to one's self, would be entirely diverse from what would be demanded were all in their safe homes. Sleepless nights, constant watching, painful toils, incessant vigilance, would be the imperious duty of every one, who could render any service. Amusements and sports, that in other circumstances would be wise and right, would be allowed only just so far as they tended to give relaxation or repose of mind and body to those who needed them, and only for the great end of securing a safe and speedy escape to all.

Now suppose that, in these circumstances, some of the wanderers are taught that there were no such dangers, that the paths were all safe and certain, and that every one of them would sooner or later arrive safely at home.

Another class are taught that all these terrific dangers do exist; nay more, that it is certain that some are to be lost in pit-falls, some torn with wild beasts, some poisoned to death with venomous reptiles, and some for ever lost in bleak and cold morasses.

Meantime, who should be the lost and who the saved, and the number of the lost, would be entirely dependent on the care, vigilance, labors and sacrifices endured by each, not only for self, but for others.

It can easily be seen, that in these three classes there must be an entirely different standard for deciding all questions of right and wrong. What would be right and wise, in case there is little or no danger, would be folly and crime amid such terrific perils. In one case, each would have little concern or responsibility for any but self; in another case, all benevolent minds would be overwhelmed with anxiety for others as well as for themselves.

This being so, it is claimed that the deductions of reason as to the future immortality of man, and his risks and dangers beyond the grave, are indispensable to deciding multitudes of moral questions of the highest moment, while every person's standard of morality must be regulated by their decision of this question.

Chapter XXVIII. The Destiny of Man in the Future Life.

It has been shown, that the teachings of reason as to the immortality of the soul, and our risks and dangers after death, are indispensable to a true standard of morality, and to the decision of innumerable moral questions of the highest moment.

The next attempt, therefore, will be to set forth what can be learned by reason and experience, independently of revelation, in regard to the future destiny of man.

The first question relates to the existence of the soul after death, and its immortality. Here we have to guide us that great principle of common sense, which regulates mankind in all the practical business of life, viz., things are, and will continue according to past experience, until there is evidence of a change.

By the aid of this, we go forward in all practical affairs, believing that the beings and things around us are continued in existence till we have evidence that they are not. If any man were to talk and act as if every person was destroyed, and every town and village annihilated, as soon as the evidence of his senses failed, he would be deemed one who had “lost his reason.”

This being so, we have the same reason to believe that the soul of man exists after death as we have for believing that our friends are living when they leave us on a journey, and we have no evidence of their death. We can not see them, hear them, or feel them, and yet we believe they are living, we know not exactly where, because we have no evidence of their death. And so, after the dissolution of the body, though all evidence of sense as to the existence of their immaterial part ceases, we believe the same thinking, sentient spirits continue to exist, because we have no evidence that they have ceased to do so.

We have perfect evidence that the body ceases to exist as a body, for it moulders to dust. We have no evidence at all that the soul is either injured or destroyed. Such a thing as the destruction or annihilation of a spirit was never known or heard of from any quarter of earth or heaven.

We therefore conclude, that at the moment of death the soul is still existing with all its powers unchanged.

The same argument goes on still further, and leads to the immortality of the soul. We know of no cause or reason for the destruction of the soul at any future period. We never have known or heard that any soul ever ceased to exist. And so we infer, that the soul will keep on a perpetuated existence, by the same principle as that which leads us to believe the earth and the heavens will remain to future ages.

Our next inquiry, then, is, what does the past experience of mind teach us as to its condition beyond the grave? In pursuing this inquiry, we must recall, in brief forms, some of the points of mental experience set forth in previous chapters.

Some of the most important of these relate to the principle of habit by which the exercise of all our faculties becomes more and more easy by use. This is true of the intellect, by which we gain our knowledge of what will secure the most happiness; of the social nature, by which we give happiness to other minds and receive the same from them; of our moral nature, by which we are guided to justice, equity, and the rule of conscience; of our voluntary nature, by which we regulate all our other powers. Each and all are developed, strengthened, and facilitated in right action, by being exercised according to the laws of God.

The legitimate use of all our faculties induces also not only increased facility, but increased enjoyment. The more the intellect is trained, the more agreeable its exercise. The more our social nature is developed by use, the more its powers are developed and its blessed influence increased. The more our moral nature is exercised, the more vigorous becomes our sense of justice and the sensibilities of conscience, and the more pleasing their exercise. And the more the will is exercised in controlling every other faculty by the rules of rectitude, the more easy and delightful is this power of self-control.

The influence of habit in regard to the great law of sacrifice for the best good of all, is especially to be regarded. Such is its power that, in many cases, self-sacrifices that at first were annoying, or even painful, become sources of the highest and noblest enjoyment.

Another not less important influence of habit is, in regard to those modes of enjoyment which are most important to the commonwealth, and most happifying. The pursuit of these increases both desire and capacity for gratification, while those less important and more dangerous, if made the leading object of pursuit, diminish capacity while desire is increased. Thus the happiness gained in giving and receiving affection, in causing happiness to others, and in rectitude of action, all increase both the desire and the capacity for these important and elevated modes of enjoyments. Nor is there any danger of excess in forming habits in these directions. But the pleasures of the senses and the pursuit of power, honor, and other enjoyments that terminate in self, are liable to excess, and this excess diminishes the capacity for enjoyment, while the ceaseless craving of desire remains.

Thus it appears that a mind that forms habits of happiness-making according to right rules, becomes more and more strongly drawn to that course by finding more and more enjoyment in it, while a mind that pursues as a chief end the enjoyments that terminate in self, constantly loses capacity for such good, and yet the desire for it drives on to vain and cheerless efforts.

Again, the effect of wrong action on the susceptibilities is as ominous as it is on the power of choice. We have seen that the design of painful emotions is to stimulate to the formation of good habits, and that when this legitimate object is not effected these emotions continually decrease in strength and vividness, so that the designed benefit is lost. Thus fear is designed to induce habits of caution, but if no such habits are the result, danger ceases to excite this emotion, and a man becomes at once fearless and careless. So with sympathy in the sufferings of others; if no habits of benevolent efforts to relieve are induced, that sensibility diminishes, and men become at once unsympathising, hard and cruel. So it is with shame; if it does not lead to habits of honor and duty, the susceptibility continually diminishes. And so it is with remorse; if habits of rectitude are not induced by its emotions, the conscience becomes “seared as with hot iron.”

Another feature of our mental conformation which directly bears on this subject, is the fact, that all those good qualities and benevolent acts which naturally tend to please and awaken the desire of good to others, may become sources of pain and ill-will. This is the case when the lovely and benevolent traits of other minds are contrasted with opposite traits in self. Thus it is that the selfish, cruel and malignant hate and are powerfully repelled from the generous, just and virtuous, while the good as instinctively fly from the wicked.

The natural result of these features in the nature of mind, is a continual tendency toward a separation of the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked.

These tendencies, so plainly exhibited here, reasoning from experience, we infer are to continue after death, until the final result must be the entire exclusion of the evil from the good, whenever power exists to compel the separation. This power, all must feel is held and will be exercised by the Author of all minds, whose great plan, so far as reason teaches, can be carried to perfection only by such a consummation.

One point in the history of our race has a mournful pertinence to this question. We find that the improvement and the safety of the great commonwealth is always, more or less, promoted by the ruin of individuals. Multitudes are deterred from evil courses by the miserable end of those who pursue them; so that the good are often preserved by the destruction of the bad.

So, too, we find exhibitions of the fact that minds are utterly ruined, and ruined for ever, so far as we can perceive. The man who has stultified his intellect, ruined his health, seared his conscience, and blunted all his generous and benevolent sensibilities by a course of debauchery, cruelty and crime, is a wreck as total and irretrievable, so far as we can see, as a watch whose springs and pivots are crushed beneath the hammer, or a human body whose every lineament is effaced beneath the rushing locomotive train.

Add to this the teaching of experience, that when men are bad, the increase of blessings only increases indulgence and crime. At the same time punishment does not tend to reformation. The more men suffer for their folly and guilt, the more hardened they become. The victims of licentiousness and intemperance, though they suffer such miseries, have ever been regarded as the farthest removed from the probabilities of reformation.

Add to all this, the deductions of reason as to the moral nature of the Creator and Governor of all minds. He has power to separate the good and bad; his great design, of which we here see only the tendencies, makes it indispensable to the perfect happiness of the good that they be separated from the bad—a perfectly happy commonwealth can not be attained where the bad form a part—while the sense of justice exists in God on a scale far above ours, demanding added penalties for the known and willful destruction of happiness. He, like his children on earth, feels that craving for retributive justice, which can never rest till the guilty and remorseless monster receives the just recompense for his cruelty and crimes.

These teachings of reason and experience lead to the conclusion, not only that there is to be a grand consummation in which all sin and suffering shall be ended in a perfected commonwealth, but also to the conclusion that those excluded from this community of the good are to continue their existence in sin and its natural results for ever.

That any portion, either of matter or mind, is to be annihilated, can not be inferred from any past experience. All that we can learn are the laws of perpetual succession and change. One single fact of annihilation has never yet been made known to man by any process of reasoning, or any recorded experience.

There is another question in reference to this awful subject, which is of deepest interest. Although the deductions of reason lead to the doctrine of the eventual separation of mankind into two distinct communities, the good and the evil, what are its teachings as to the immediate state of each individual soul after the event of death?

Here, as before, we have only the nature and past history of mind, from which the future is to be deduced. In this world we have found the changes in the character of individuals and of communities to proceed by slow and imperceptible movement. We have nothing in the past to lead to the belief that this slow process of discipline, culture and change may not proceed on for ages. As in this life, multitudes have the impress and direction of character given in early life, so that the first few years determine all their future history in this world, so the career of this short life may fix the future through eternal years. And yet the process of change to the full consummation of character may involve ages.

Guided, then, by the analogies of experience, we should infer that mind, the noblest work of its Creator's hand—mind, that begins its career in such low and feeble development, is not to form the mournful exception to the general rule.

On the contrary, we infer from all past experience, both of matter and mind, that the soul, when it lays aside its outer covering, proceeds onward in its career of development. And if its period of progressive development is proportioned to its relative value in comparison with all other created things, the fleeting years of this life in relation to the ages previous to its prime, may be but as the first days of puling infancy to the whole career of manhood.

We can suppose the body a veil to hide our mind from another, and that death makes every soul “open and naked,” in all its thoughts and feelings, to every other disembodied spirit. What would be the effect of such a revelation, no one could say. But we should fear rather than hope.

If men are exasperated by words that exhibit only a portion of the scorn, contempt, and disgust felt toward the base and mean, not only by the pure and good, but by the wicked themselves, such a full revelation of all minds to all minds presents a theme for awful forebodings to the guilty. And even the purest might tremble to encounter such an ordeal. But over such terrific conjectures rest the darkness and silence of the grave.

The following, then, are the deductions of reason and experience as to the future condition of our race after death.

The final consummation in which this separation will be achieved, may be at the distance of ages, and in the meantime all those minds that have passed, or will pass from this life, are in the same process of culture, discipline, and upward or downward progress, which exists in this life. Whether these advantages and temptations will be greater or less in the disembodied state, we have no data for inference or conjecture.

In a previous chapter was pointed out the distinction to be recognized between the producing cause and the occasional causes of volition.

Mind itself is the only producing cause of its own volitions. Excited desires, and those objects which excite desire, are the occasional causes of choice.

The question is, in what sense can any being be the cause of virtuous actions, or virtuous character, in another mind?

Here we must recur to the fact that the Creator, as the author of all minds, and of all the things that excite desire, is the cause, in one sense, of all the volitions and of all the characters of all finite minds. It is in this sense that, in the Bible, the Jehovah of the Old Testament says, “I make peace and create evil.” No other being but the Creator can be regarded as the cause of volitions in this sense, viz., as the author of all minds and their circumstances of temptation.

There is a second sense in which the Creator is never the cause of sinful action in any mind. It is this: creating or modifying our susceptibilities, or arranging temptations with the design or intention of producing sinful action. This is established by proving, that the chief end of God is to make the most possible happiness, and that sin is the needless destruction of happiness, resulting from disobedience to the laws of God.

The only sense, then, in which God can be called the author or cause of sinful volitions in the minds of his creatures, is the fact that he is the author of all created minds and of their circumstances of temptation.

In regard to man, there are only two conceivable modes, in which he can be the cause of sinful or virtuous character in other minds.

The first mode is so to combine circumstances of temptation as to affect the most excitable and powerful sensibilities, or to remove those objects and influences that sustain moral principle, or by a long course of training, to form habits and induce principles. The combinations of motive influences that one mind can thus bring to bear on another, as temptations to right or wrong action, are almost infinite.

Another mode is by changing the constitutional susceptibilities. This can sometimes be effected to a certain degree by education, and the formation of habits. It can be still more directly effected through the physical organization. For example, a child may be trained to use coffee, tea, alcohol, or tobacco, till the nervous system is shattered, and then a placid temper becomes excitable, an active nature becomes indolent, and multitudes of other disastrous changes are the result.

When these two modes are employed with the design to induce wrong action, then men are blameable causes of sinful action and character in their fellow men. God, as above shown, never thus causes sin. When these modes are employed with the intention to induce virtuous actions and character, then both God and man are causes of right moral action in mankind.

The attainment of virtuous character, therefore, depends conjointly on God, man and self. It has been shown that God invariably does the best he can to secure the most perfect action possible in all minds.

The blamable causes of all failure in right and virtuous action are self and the finite educators of self. The unblamable causes are God, educators and self, so far as they are faithful in doing all they can to educate aright.

With these preliminary considerations, we proceed in the inquiry as to those modes which in past experience have been found most successful in securing virtuous character, or voluntary obedience to the laws of God.

The first cause of right moral action is a knowledge of and faith in the physical, social, intellectual and moral laws of God. It is impossible, in the nature of things, that a new-created mind should be possessed of such knowledge and faith. All that is possible, so far as we can learn by reason and experience, is that there should be a slow and gradual development not only of each individual mind, but of the whole race, as each generation, in turn, receives by instruction the experience of the one previous, and transmits it with its own experience to a succeeding generation.

The next thing taught by experience is that children should be instructed as fast as possible in the reasonableness and benevolence of all the laws they are required to obey. Obedience is made easy and sure just in proportion as a child is made to perceive, that such obedience is best for himself and best for all concerned.

The next thing which experience has shown to be most effective in securing obedience to law, is love on the part of the educator, and corresponding love in return from the child. To gain the love of a child an educator must exhibit all lovable traits, and confer benefits, so as to call forth at once admiration, gratitude and affection. This renders it easy to the child to conform to the rules and wishes of one so beloved.

Sympathy with a child in all its trials and in all its enjoyments, still further increases this power of another mind in right guidance.

This sympathetic influence is greatly increased by the power of a virtuous example—especially if this example is exhibited by a beloved friend and benefactor, who would be gratified by thus guiding a dependent mind.

Another influence that tends to secure virtuous action is the bearing of pain and hardships even when it is not voluntary. Those children who are trained in a cold clime and on a hard soil, and who are early trained to hardships, find it far easier to conform to rule, and to bear sacrifices for the general good, than those whose lives have been a course of uninterrupted ease and indulgence.

To these, add the social influences of the example and sympathy of a surrounding community. Where all around are practicing virtuous conduct—where all admire and praise only what is good and right—it is far easier to secure obedience to the rules of rectitude, than where the example and sympathy of surrounding minds are opposed to virtue.

But the most powerful of all influences in securing virtuous action, is the principle of love and gratitude toward some noble benefactor, who saves from some terrible evils at the expense of great personal suffering and sacrifices, and who seeks his reward in the pleasure of redeeming those thus benefited, from the snares and ruin of sin. And the greater the evils averted, and the more severe the suffering on the part of the benefactor, the stronger the influence thus gained to secure virtuous character and action in the one thus rescued.

When the question is asked, “What must we do to be saved?” it may be answered in reference to all concerned in the matter; that is to say, “What must self do—What must our fellow-men do—What must the Creator do, to secure obedience to his laws, and thus to save from sin and its penalties?”

In view of the above teachings, each one for himself must seek, first, knowledge of the laws of God, and of their rewards and penalties as discovered by the experience of mankind. In order to do this, each must take all means to gain true teachers, and to receive their teachings in true faith, that is, that practical faith, which includes the purpose of obedience. Each must cultivate the intellect, the reason and the moral sense, in order to judge correctly in receiving and applying the rules of rectitude; each must seek to discover the reasonableness and benevolence of these laws, and form habits of steady obedience; each must seek to discover and rightly to appreciate all the good and lovable qualities of all who institute and administer laws, from the Creator to all subordinate rulers and governors in the domestic and civil state; each must seek the society of those whose sympathy and example would encourage and promote virtuous conduct; and finally, each must make obedience to all the laws of God the chief end or ruling purpose. These are briefly the reply to the great question in relation to self.

We are next to consider this question in relation to what men must do to save others.

In a preceding chapter have been exhibited the risks and dangers of our race in reference to the future life. These are such, that without any appeal to revelation, every man of humanity and benevolence must feel that to save his fellow-beings from such dangers should become immediately his leading object of pursuit, his chief end.

In regard to those who are the educators of the young, each must strive to maintain that invariable steadiness in governments which is so effective in forming virtuous habits and in rendering obedience to the laws of God more and more easy.

Finally, it should be the aim of each to establish such a community around all who are being trained to virtue, that every social influence shall repress vice and encourage virtue.

Next, we are to consider the great question in reference to the Creator. What then must God do to save our race from sin and its miseries? What would reason and experience teach us to expect he would do to secure obedience to his laws?

In answering this question we must again refer to the causes which experience has shown to be most effective, for we can conceive of no other. We have examined the evidence that the Creator has given to each of his children such a constitution of mind and body, and such circumstances of temptation and trial as is best on the whole, as a part of an infinite system whose results are to develop through eternity. At the same time it has been shown that God is limited, by the eternal nature of things, to a course in which some evil must exist, so that all that is requisite to his character as perfectly benevolent, is that this evil should be reduced by him to its least possible amount.

If it be maintained that the Creator is not thus limited by the nature of things, but, as theologians teach, could make mind perfect in all needed knowledge as in all other respects, at the first, then we have the greater contradiction involved in the fact, that a perfectly benevolent being chose for his children ignorance and sin in preference to knowledge and virtue.

To say that it may be best to create minds destitute of all needed knowledge when the want insures infinite wrong and suffering, and when there is power to create the knowledge that would insure perfect happiness, is simply a direct contradiction. It is saying that less happiness may be greater than greater happiness. For by “what is for the best” we understand “that which secures the most happiness.” And saying that making misery where there is power to make happiness in its place, is best, means nothing else but the assertion above, that less happiness is greater than greater happiness; or that less is more than most, which is a contradiction, inconceivable and absurd, so that no mind can either comprehend or believe it.

Now, every theologian of every school and of every sect maintains that “God does all things for the best.” Every one who believes in a benevolent Creator does the same. This is simply saying that God does the best possible; that is to say, there is no power that can make a better system than God has made, or administer it with more wisdom or benevolence. He has chosen the best possible and so he can not do any better.

These things being granted, the teachings of experience would lead us to suppose, still farther, that the Creator must do all that is possible to maintain invariable steadiness of government. We can see that this, which is so important in family government, must be still more so in an infinite family. For this end, the natural penalties for wrong doing, must be as invariable as the rewards for well doing.

Again, the Creator must instruct his creatures in his laws and their rewards and penalties to the full extent of his power. That is to say, he must provide well-trained educators of mind, as fast and as fully as is possible in the nature of things, having in view the results of eternal ages to guide his decisions.

Finally, he must bring around each of his creatures the powerful social influence, not only of his own sympathy and example, but those also of a perfect commonwealth, where all shall be perfect as is the Father of all.