It has been the privilege of the author all her life to be intimately associated, by family and other connections, with the ministers of religion in a variety of denominations--those intelligent, excellent, and pious men who, more than any other class, can understand that heavy burden of spirit connected with that awful subject, _the eternal loss of the human soul_.
Before closing, they will permit a few inquiries in reference to this subject. The almost universal cessation of "revivals" of religion, the diminished attendance of the masses on Sabbath worship, the decrease in the relative proportion of the ministry, the diminution of spirituality and the consequent laxness in the Church, the increase of skepticism and infidelity of various grades, the terrific rush of worldliness on all classes, as wealth, and luxury, and temptations of all kinds abound, are not all these signs of the times of fearful import, foreshadowing either some dreadful judgments, or the advent of some moral forces that are appropriate to such a crisis?
In this position of the moral world, is it to be supposed that theology alone, of all departments of science, has reached its culminating point, so that there is no possibility of improvement? Is there not manifestly needed far more powerful motives than any now wielded to stop the inrushing tide of worldliness? In former times, when revivals abounded, it was the principle of _fear_ that was first appealed to with such wonderful results. But where now are such appeals made as once shook men's consciences with fears of "_the wrath to come_?"
If such preaching abounds in any quarter of our nation, where is it? In all her travels the writer finds it wanting, and the testimony of others is similar.
Here, now, is the great question: Could the ministry _now_ preach the _distinctive_ theories of Calvinism, and at the same time those awful views of the _eternal loss of the soul_, warranted by Scripture language, with any prospect of being sustained by the moral sentiments of the great body of benevolent and intelligent hearers? Would not some be driven to reckless worldliness, others to infidelity, others to Universalism, others to another style of preaching, till the remainder could scarcely maintain any preaching at all? Is not this perceived and felt by many ministers, and is not this one great reason why that terrible doctrine, on which the whole Gospel is based, is now so hidden or so slightly recognized in the pulpit ministrations?