opinion, according to its own description of itself. It at once acknowledges that, seeing what Christian opinions are, both the ordinary liberty of opinion, and the very nature of those opinions in themselves, require that they should enjoy a reverent medium of communication with the public. It acknowledges that irreverence conflicts with what is of their very essence, and is obstructive of their free action as opinions.

But the State has a more special duty even than this. The great bulk of the community are in a condition which entitles them to protection on the part of the State. The great mass are composed of the young, the ignorant, and the labouring poor. Towards these classes, the position of the State is this: It is bound to take care that those opinions, between which they are to choose, shall come to them, or have the means of reaching them in their true character, without any illicit interference or poisonous adulteration. Especially must this be so with regard to that particular set of opinions which are alleged to carry in their train eternal consequences of good or evil. Shall these be prevented from finding access to the humble, the ignorant, and the young, in their true garb, and with the freedom and purity which their own nature requires?

Now, how is it consistent with the fair and free action of religious opinions upon those who are unprotected, and not of sufficient intellectual or social strength to cast off all illicit influences, to allow those religious opinions to be publicly ridiculed and held up to scorn? Where is the liberty of opinion? where the fairness? where the equality? if unbridled irreverence stalks abroad to bias and prejudice and intimidate the weak and the unwary. Irreverence and contempt, be it observed, involve not merely an improper prejudice against Christian opinions, but poison the very atmosphere of those opinions. The spirit of ridicule is itself destructive of the very conditions under which alone religious opinions can live, merely as opinions. Christianity and irreverence are absolutely incompatible. And yet, irreverence cannot pretend to be an opinion. It cannot shelter itself under a claim to be treated, itself, as an independent opinion.

Perhaps to this it may be answered, that persons need not

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be affected by the ridicule or the scoffing unless they like, and that there is no harm in leaving them to feel and do as they like in this respect. But to this again I answer, that the common mass of the people are not those who know and understand all that can be said on both sides. It cannot be expected that they should do so. weak and the unprotected, and no state of the world can be The common mass are the anticipated, in which people generally shall be able to erect a barrier for themselves against irreverent influences, by first critically examining all that has been written and said for and against the Christian faith.

It has indeed been said, that education is the means by which the evil I have last adverted to, is to be guarded against. If this be intended as a serious answer to the argument, it surely ought to astonish us when we reflect that we are still considering what form the education of the people is to take; and I would ask whether we are to be denied this modicum of protection to national religious feeling, while the vexed question of education remains unsettled, and to wait until the system, whatever it may be, which is to be adopted, has swept away the whole mass of the surrounding ignorance? Are we, in fact, now to throw away the only remedy we have, slight though it be, against gratuitous and improper attacks upon the religious opinions of the people, attacks which no notions of liberty can justify, because, at some future time, harmony and unity among educationists will secure for all classes, a course of instruction which will prevent the necessity of any legal barrier for the protection of religion? I see no answer to the argument, that the duty of the State is to prohibit ribaldry, in the assertion that the State has another duty which, if not neglected, would furnish a better protection to religion.

I contend, then, that since Christianity may be true (which is all that I ask the infidel to allow); that since, if true, its behests are of everlasting moment to every one; that, since irreverence and ridicule are conditions inconsistent with the very nature of Christian opinions, and incompatible with their just action as opinions, it is the right and the duty of the

State, not by infringing upon liberty of opinion, but, on the contrary, in pursuance of it, and for securing it, to punish the licentious scoffer, and declare blasphemy a crime.

Let me, in conclusion of this view of the question, remind you of the touching language of Lord Erskine in Williams's case. Speaking of the blasphemous publication, "Paine's Age of Reason," he says, "It strikes at the best, and sometimes, alas the only refuge and consolation amidst the troubles and afflictions of the world. The poor and humble, whom it affects to pity, may be stabbed to the heart by it. They have more occasion for firm hopes beyond the grave than the rich and prosperous, who have other comforts to render life delightful. I can conceive a distressed, but virtuous man surrounded by his children looking up to him for bread, when he has none to give them; sinking under the last day's labour, and unequal to the next; yet still (supported by confidence in the hour when all tears shall be wiped from the eyes of affliction) bearing the burden laid upon him by a mysterious Providence which he adores, and anticipating, with exultation, the revealed promises of his Creator, when he shall be greater than the greatest, and happier than the happiest of mankind. What a change in such a mind might be wrought by such a merciless publication!"

Another consideration, which more properly belongs to this line of argument than to the succeeding one, though perhaps in strictness to neither, arises from the particular circumstance that the great majority of people in this country profess the Christian religion. As individuals, they being Christians, cannot but acknowledge the duty of holding in veneration God and the Bible. Now, the question which I would ask is, whether they are released from this obligation because they have aggregated themselves into a state-because they are a corporation, and not units? It is, of course, conceded, that all the members of the corporation are not Christians by profession; and those, I need hardly say, who are not such, we do 'not address in this argument. Further still, I admit that, if it were a question of prohibiting or enforcing opinions, then against those rejecting them we could make no use of the fact

that the majority are Christians. But, persecution and intolerance, which are no weapons of Christianity, being out of the case, what answer is there to the suggestion that the same duty rests upon the aggregate of Christians which is acknowledged to bind them individually? How can their association, in the same community with unbelievers, exonerate them from performing the duty which rests upon themselves as Christians, and the performance of which, by the hypothesis, involves no breach of the just liberty of the dissentients? How can the mass who accept the Divine injunction, "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow," allow a public and (what they must admit to be) a profane desecration of that name to go uurebuked, and that too under the tacit sanction of their own laws, merely because there are some allied with them in the State who disavow the Christian injunction, but whose liberty of opinion is not infringed by enforcing it?

Let me now proceed to those considerations which are of a mixed character, and represent worldly as well as religious interests; secular as well as religious considerations. Is the State entitled to repress blasphemy upon the basis of a foregone conclusion, that atheism or infidelity is publicly pernicious, apart from any consideration of the precise nature of Christianity?

I shall here assume (what, no doubt, has been denied) that some opinions may be treated as necessary to civilization; and that as regards the State, so long as there is no persecution, the usefulness or expediency of particular opinions, and not their truth merely, may be taken into consideration. It cannot be necessary when a given emergency presents itself, and the State must, in that emergency, act one way or the other, that the State should know, with infallible certainty, that its opinions on the abstract question are right. But then it is said, when we claim to look at expediency or usefulness, that even the usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion! What then! Is the State to stand still, and do nothing, in all matters that can be deemed matters of opinion, because the truth or usefulness of the opinion may be debated? It would be idle to treat such a contention as entitled to any

serious attention, were it not that such a notion seems to be countenanced by recent writers of great ability.

Now, what I am contending for is, that the state may adopt and act upon the opinion that atheism is publicly and nationally pernicious-that when atheism assumes the form of blasphemy it may be punished-and that so to treat it involves no violation of true liberty of opinion. The answer is, that the nation, i.e. the majority, cannot, without assuming infallibility, be sure that atheism is not right. Supposing this to be granted, is it meant that, until the certainty is obtained, all practical interests affected by the question are to be left to take care of themselves? Is history, is experience, is example, to be disregarded, so far as it warns us against infidelity? Is government to fall to pieces-the fabric of society to totter-so far as they have been reared and built up of Christian materials, because as yet there is no one and no government that can oracularly assume infallibility?

Now, this dilemma is expressly stated by Mr. Mill in his book on Liberty, and it is worth while to notice how explicitly he puts it. I claim the full benefit of the objection as he himself supposes it.

After arguing that all opinions are equally liable to the risk of error, he supposes some one to object thus:

"There is no greater assumption of infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error than in any other thing which is done by public authority, on its own judgment and responsibility. Judgment is given to men that they may use it. Because it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to use it at all? To prohibit what they think pernicious is not claiming exemption from error, but fulfilling the duty incumbent on them, although fallible, of acting on their conscientious conviction. If we were never to act on our opinions because those opinions may be wrong, we should leave all our interests uncared for, and all our duties unperformed. An objection which applies to all conduct can be no valid objection to any conduct in particular. It is the duty of governments, and of individuals, to form the truest opinions they can; to form them carefully, and never impose