406 OPINIONS OF THE UNIVERSALISTS. 



higher or lower position of happiness, according to the 

 life he has led on earth, and takes a longer or shorter 

 time to progress towards the perfect enjoyment of the 

 heavenly life. Thus there are different orders in heaven, 

 different degrees of happiness, and a man s behaviour 

 here may be said, in a sense, to determine his condition 

 in heaven through all eternity. One can see how, upon 

 a foundation of this sort, an argument for moral living 

 may be based, and how men may be nominally kept 

 together by it, where the charity is so large as to permit 

 them to call by the name of brethren all who hold to 

 their single characteristic opinion. 



My accidental acquaintance was of the largest charity. 

 He was well educated, and had studied theology three 

 years at Cambridge the best theological school in New 

 England, according to his view. He thought different 

 forms of belief were suited to different men, to different 

 classes, and to different periods. He saw good, and 

 found good men among all sects. With this perception 

 of good I perfectly coincided, but when he took the 

 Mormons for his case, and, except polygamy, did not 

 think there was much that was absolutely reprehensible 

 in them, I could not coincide with him. It would have 

 been useless to enter into controversy, but I could not 

 help asking in connection with his notion of different 

 forms of belief being adapted to different times and 

 classes of people if he did not hold that there was 

 really any such thing as religious truth at all if every 

 thing was non-essential. But the question elicited 

 nothing. 



We diverged into a conversation upon the Mormons 

 and their practice of polygamy. I do not know how far 

 the people on the Salt Lake, now asking for admission 

 into the Union, really practise generally or hold polygamy 

 to be legal. It will be difficult, I should think, in a new 

 country like that, for many of them to obtain more than 



