And what was the moral tendency of the doctrine?
I had never borne to dwell upon it: but I before long suspected that it promoted malignity and selfishness, and was the real clue to the cruelties perpetrated under the name of religion.

For he who does dwell on it, must comfort himself under the prospect of his brethren's eternal misery, by the selfish expectation of personal blessedness.

When I asked whether I had been guilty of this selfishness, I remembered that I had often mourned, how small a part in my practical religion the future had ever borne.

My heaven and my hell had been in the present, where my God was near me to smile or to frown.

It had seemed to me a great weakness in my faith, that I never had any vivid imaginations or strong desires of heavenly glory: yet now I was glad to observe, that it had at least saved me from getting so much harm from the wrong side of the doctrine of a future life.
Before I had worked out the objections so fully as here stated, I freely disclosed my thoughts to the friend last named, and to his wife, towards whom he encouraged me to exercise the fullest frankness.
I confess, I said nothing about the Unitarian book; for something told me that I had violated Evangelical decorum in opening it, and that I could not calculate how it would affect my friend.