Christian religion is to speak in subversion of the law."1

26. With regard to absolute blasphemy, however, the case is different, and the law in this country, equally with the English, recognizes blasphemy as an offense; not only against good manners and good morals, but against the public weal as well.

3

"Whether the principle," says Bishop, "upon which this doctrine rests, is that they (blasphemy and profane swearing) tend to undermine Christianity, which is a part of our law, or that they disturb the peace and corrupt the morals of the community, is a question not fully settled. Perhaps we may even take another view, namely, that reverence toward God and religion-Christianity being our form of religion —is essential to man, who is injured in his nature and being, when this reverence is impaired; or, still another view, that these offenses so shock his purer and higher sensibilities as to create an injury to him against which he needs protection, precisely as against an assault. Probably these several considerations,

perhaps they are necessary for the sake of our neighbor, who, if he believes in a God, or holds his religion, whether true or false, to be true, always feels himself extremely scandalized by them. Nor is it only blasphemy against the true God that ought to be punished; but even that against false gods, supposed saints, and fictitious religion, whenever they happen to be the gods, saints, and religion of the people." Shortt. L. Lit. 298.

2

1 Vid. Patterson's Case, 1 Brown, 627.

? I Crim. Law, vol. ii., § 87.

Blackstone (4 Com. 287) describes the offense of blasphemy as consisting in a denial of the being or providence of the Almighty; or in contumelious reproaches of our Lord and Saviour, Christ; or in profane scoffing at the holy Scripture, or exposing it to contempt and ridicule, for Christianity is part of the laws of England. Vid., also, Rex v. Taylor, 2 Vent. 293; 3 Kebl. R. 607.

and some others also, may each be deemed to enter more or less into the policy of the law."

27. The English law against blasphemy is very severe, and the makers and publishers of works construed to be blasphemous in their nature, are criminally dealt with.'

1

1

In Rex v. Woolsten (Str. 834), relating to a book designed to show that the Christian miracles were not to be taken in a literal but an allegorical sense, the court would not suffer it to be debated whether to write against Christianity in general was not an offense punishable in the temporal courts at common law. They laid stress on the word "general,” and stated that they did not intend to include disputes between learned men upon particular controverted points. Raymond, Ch. J., in delivering the judgment of the court, said: "I would have it taken notice of that we do not meddle with any differences of opinion, and that we interpose only where the very root of Christianity itself is struck at," which the court considered to be done in the book in question.

In Rex v. Williams, the defendant was convicted of having published a blasphemous libel, called "Paine's Age of Reason," which denied the authority of the Old and New Testaments, asserted that reason was the only guide by which the conduct of men ought to be directed, and ridiculed the prophets, Jesus Christ, his disciples, and the Scriptures. Ashurst, J., in that case remarked that, "although the Almighty did not require the aid of human tribunals to vindicate his precepts, it was nevertheless fit to show our abhorrence of such wicked doctrines, which were not only an offense against God, but against all law and government, from their direct tendency to dissolve all the bonds and obligations of civil society. It was upon this ground that the Christian religion constituted part of the law of the land. But if the name of our Redeemer was suffered to be traduced, and his holy religion treated with contempt, the solemnity of an oath, on which the due administration of justice depended, would be destroyed, and the law be stripped of one of its principal sanctions—the dread of future punishment;" which seems to be a very concise statement of the reason and policy of the law on this subject.

It is a blasphemous libel to represent by a published writing that Jesus Christ is an impostor, the Christian religion a mere fable, and those who believe in it infidels to God (Rex v.

With us, however, the law is more tolerant,' said Kent, J., in the case of The People v. Ruggles.' 'After conviction we must intend that the words Eaton, 31 Howell's St. Tr. 927. Eaton was sentenced, by Lord Ellenborough, to be imprisoned for eighteen months in Newgate, and to stand in the pillory between the hours of twelve and two, once within a month), or that Jesus Christ was an impostor, a murderer, and a fanatic (Rex v. Waddington, 1 B. & C. 26). It has been held to be a blasphemous libel to publish anything which tends to question or cast disgrace upon the Old Testament alone; for (as was said in Reg. v. Hetherington, 5 Jur. 529) the Old Testament is so connected with the New, that a reflection on the one is a reflection on the other also.

Vid., also, 17 D. & R. 629; Poplett v. Stockdale, Ry. & M. 337.

In addition to the doctrines of the common law relating to blasphemous libels, there are some express enactments of the legislature on the subject. Several of the old statutory provisions have been repealed, but the following still remain in force:

1 Edw. 6, ch. 1, enacts that persons reviling the sacrament of the Lord's Supper by contemptuous words or otherwise, shall be punished by fine and imprisonment.

I Eliz. ch. 2, enacts that if any minister shall speak anything in derogation of the book of Common Prayer, he shall, if not beneficed, be imprisoned one year for the first offense, and for life for the second; and if he be beneficed, shall for the first offense be imprisoned six months, and forfeit a year's value of his benefice; for the second, shall be deprived and suffer one year's imprisonment; and for the third, shall in like manner be deprived and suffer imprisonment for life. And that if any person whatsoever shall in plays, songs, or other open words, speak anything in derogation, depraving, or despising of the said book, &c., he shall forfeit for the first offense, one hundred marks; for the second, four hundred; and for the third, shall forfeit all his goods and chattels, and suffer imprisonment for life.

The most important of the statutes now in force is the 9 & 10 Will. III., ch. 32. It enacts that if any person educated in or having made profession of the Christian religion, shall by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, deny any

1 8 Johns. 292.

were uttered in a wanton manner, and, as they evidently import, with a wicked and malicious disposition, and not in a serious discussion upon any controverted point in religion. The language was blasphemous, not only in a popular, but in a legal sense; for blasphemy, according to the most precise definitions, consists in maliciously reviling God or

one of the persons of the holy Trinity to be God (repealed by 53 Geo. III., ch. 160, § 2, "so far as the same relates to persons denying as therein mentioned respecting the holy Trinity "), or assert or maintain that there are more gods than one, or deny the Christian religion to be true, or the holy Scriptures to be of divine authority, he shall, upon the first offense, be rendered incapable to hold any office or place of trust; and for the second, be rendered incapable of bringing any action, being guardian, executor, legatee, or purchaser of lands, and shall suffer imprisonment without bail for three years. But the person convicted for a first offense is to be discharged from all penalties and disabilities for that offense, if he renounce his error in open court within four months after conviction. Information of an offense against the act must be given within four days after it has been committed, and the prosecution must be within three months after such information.

There is no recorded instance of a prosecution under this act.

This statute has not altered the common law on the subject of blasphemous libels, but has only introduced certain peculiar disabilities cumulative upon the penalties previously inflicted by the common law (Rex. v. Carlisle, 3 B. & Ald. 161; Rex. v. Williams, 26 How. St. Tr. 656; 2 Str. 884), for it is a general rule that, where an offense is already punishable by a common-law proceeding, a statute providing a particular punishment for it does not exclude the common-law punishment, but only supplies an alternative or a cumulative one (Rex v. Robinson, 1 Burr. 799).

Neither, it seems, does the 53 Geo. III., ch. 160, alter the common-law doctrine as to blasphemous libels; it only removes the penalties imposed by 9 & 10 Will. III., ch. 32, upon persons denying the Trinity, and extends to them the benefit of the Toleration Act of 1 Will. & M., sess. 1, ch. 18.– Shortt, L. Lit. 301, 302.

religion, and this was reviling Christianity through its author. The jury have passed upon the intent or quo animo, and if those words spoken, in any case, will amount to a misdemeanor the indictment is good.

The free, equal, and undisturbed enjoyment of religious opinion, whatever it may be, and free and decent discussions on any religious subject, are granted and secured; but to revile, with malicious and blasphemous contempt, the religion professed by almost the whole community, is an abuse of that right."1

In Rex v. Waddington (1 B. & C. 26), where the libel stated that Jesus Christ was an impostor, and a murderer in principle, and a fanatic-the defendant, in moving for a new trial, urged that the lord chief justice had misdirected the jury by stating that any publication in which the divinity of Jesus Christ was denied was an unlawful libel; and he argued that, since the 53 Geo. III., ch. 160, the denying one of the persons of the Trinity to be God was no offense, and consequently that a publication in support of such a position was not a libel. The court of king's bench unanimously refused a rule for a new trial, and held that the publication was a blasphemous libel. Best, J., said: "The 53 Geo. III., ch. 160,

has made no alteration in the common law relative to libel. If, previous to the passing of that statute, it would have been a libel to deny, in any printed work, the divinity of the second person in the Trinity, the same publication would be a libel now. The 53 Geo. III., ch. 160, as its title expresses, is an act to relieve persons, who impugn the doctrine of the Trinity, from certain penalties. If we look at the body of the act, to see from what penalties such persons are relieved, we find that they are the penalties from which the 1 Will. & M., sess. 1, ch. 18, exempted all Protestant Dissenters, except such as denied the Trinity, and the penalties or disabilities which the 9 & 10 Will. III., ch. 32, imposed on those who denied the Trinity. The 1 Will. & M., sess. 1, ch. 18, is, as it has been usually called, an act of toleration, or one which allows Dissenters to worship God in the mode that is agreeable to their religious opinions, and exempts them from punishment for non-attendance at the Established Church, and non-conformity to its rights. The legislature, in passing that act, only thought