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236 LETTERS.
dark. And why? Probably because the process of purifi
cation had, to.a great extent, taken the character of demo
lition, instead of caution. It is tolerably well acknowledged,
that the cause hereof was lying quite as much in a faulty
conception of the defenders of the old, as of the advocates
of the new, doctrine.
But now —is it necessary that this experiment should
be tried again? Surely you believe this as little as I do.
What then was done, is done. New times and new means
have come into the world. The regeneration which for-
merly was effected by violent means, can now, ought now
to be effected by peaceful means ; by the power of enlight-
enment, of conviction, and of truth. For to these the minds
of the people are open, and the press is a mighty engine to
work upon hearts and brains. But all its labor for the
rights of man and for the regeneration of society, in that
Christian sense which equalizes the conditions of men, and
makes mankind brothers and sisters, will remain imperfect
and lame, if it is torn away from the eternal principles
upon which Christianity itself has based its doctrine of
freedom and love; and this, because these alone go to the
bottom of the thing, and contain and exhaust the whole
truth; for they alone comprise “the laws and words of
eternal life.” What man of sense would plant branches in
dry sand, instead of grafting them upon a living tree, where
they can grow and live; of who would erect a building
without giving it a safe foundation? But they appear to me
to do this, who preach the moral and political doctrines of
Christianity, while at the same time they contradict the
principles out of which these emanate.
But to plead for the former in the name of the latter,
would be a task worthy a great reformer, and our times
require to see such a one appear. A sense of the greatest
want of mankind, a search into its inmost history and into
its relation to the Christian revelation — these will proba-
bly be the most essential conditions for the success of his
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