subject, in a twenty minutes' sermon, and leaving their hearers as dull, and lifeless, and uninformed, as they found them; but all our public services would be conducted with life, and energy, and pathos, and by men of sanctified dispositions and enlightened understandings, "not given to" idleness and "filthy lucre," but having their whole faculties absorbed in the study of the word, the ways, and the works of God. And, in order to expand the minds of the Christian people, and to prepare them for listening with intelligence to such instructions, we should have Courses of Lectures on Natural History, Philosophy, Astronomy, and General History, attended by thousands of anxious inquirers, instead of the tens which can now be induced to attend on such means of instruction. For knowledge, when it is clearly exhibited, and where a previous desire has been excited for its acquisition, is a source of enjoyment to the human mind in every stage of its progress, from the years of infancy to the latest period of mortal existence.

III. Such a diffusion of knowledge as that to which we have now adverted, would introduce a spirit of tolerance and moderation, and prevent the recurrence of those persecutions for conscience' sake, which have so much disgraced the world.

It is a striking and most melancholy fact in the history of man, that the most dreadful sufferings and tortures ever felt by human beings, have been inflicted on account of differences of opinion respecting the dogmas and the ceremonies of religion. Men have been suffered to remain villains, cheats and robbers, deceitful, profligate and profane, to invade the territories of their unoffending neighbours, to burn cities and towns, to lay waste provinces, and

slaughter thousands of their fellow-creatures, and to pass with impunity; while, in numerous instances, the most pious, upright, and philanthropic characters have been hurried like criminals to stakes, gibbets, racks, and flames, merely for holding an opinion different from their superiors respecting a doctrine in religion, or the manner in which the Divine Being ought to be worshipped. In the early ages of Christianity, under the emperor Nero, the Christians were wrapped up in the skins of wild beasts, and some of them in this state worried and devoured by dogs; others were crucified, and others dressed in shirts made stiff with wax, fixed to axle trees, and set on fire, and consumed in the gardens at Rome. Such dreadful persecutions continued, under the heathen emperors, with a few intervals, to the time of Constantine, a period of more than two hundred and thirty years. It might not be so much to be wondered at that pagans should persecute the followers of Christ; but it was not long before pretended Christians began to persecute one another on account of certain shades of difference in their religious opinions. The persecutions to which the Waldenses and Albigenses were subjected by the Popish church, the strangling and burning of supposed heretics, and the tortures inflicted on those suspected of favouring the doctrines of Protestantism by the Spanish inquisition a court whose history is written in flames, and in characters of blood,-exhibit a series of diabolical cruelties, the recital of which is enough to make "the ears of every one to tingle," and to make him feel as if he were degraded in belonging to a race of intelligences capable of perpetrating such dreadful enormities.

Even in the British isles such persecutions have

raged, and such cruelties have been perpetrated, and that, too, in the name of the benevolent religion of Jesus Christ. In our times, the more appalling and horrific forms which persecution formerly assumed, have been set aside by the civil laws of our country, but its spirit still remains, and manifests itself in a variety of different shapes. What other name can be given to a power which prevents a numerous and respectable body of men from holding certain civil offices and emoluments, because they do not belong to an established church, and yet compels them to contribute to the maintenance of the ministers of that church, although they do not recognise them as their religious instructors? that denies to a dissenter, or his children, the privilege of being interred in what is called consecrated ground, and refuses to allow a bell to be tolled at their funerals ?-that, in Scotland, prevents a person, however distinguished for moral qualifications and intellectual acquirements, from being eligible as teacher of a parochial school, if he is not connected with the established church? and in many other ways attempts to degrade thousands of individuals on account of their thinking and acting according to the dictates of their conscience? It is true, indeed, that fires, and racks, and tortures, and gibbets, and thumb-screws are no longer applied as punishments for differences of opinion in religion, for the strong hand of the civil law interposes to prevent them. But were no such power interposed, the principle which sanctions such deprivations as those now mentioned, if carried out to all its legitimate consequences, might soon lead to as dreadful persecutions as those which have already entailed indelible disgrace on the race of man.

Such a spirit of intolerance and persecution is di

rectly opposed to every rational principle, to every generous and humane feeling, to every precept of Christianity, and to every disposition inculcated by the religion of Jesus. It is the height of absurdity to enforce belief in any doctrine or tenet, by the application of physical power, for it never can produce the intended effect; it may harden and render persons more obstinate in their opinions, but it can never convey conviction to the understanding. And if men had not acted like fools and idiots, as well as like demons, such a force, in such cases, would never have been applied. And, as such an attempt is irrational, so it is criminal in the highest degree, to aim at producing conviction by the application of flames, or by the point of the sword; being at direct variance both with the precepts and the practice of the Benevolent Founder of our holy religion.

We have, therefore, the strongest reason to conclude, that were the light of science and of Christianity universally diffused, the hydra of persecution would never dare, in any shape, to lift up its heads again in the world. As it was during the dark ages that it raged in its most horrific forms, so the light of intelligence would force it back to the infernal regions whence it arose, as the wild beasts of the forests betake themselves to their dens and thickets at the approach of the rising sun. Wherever reason holds its ascendancy in the mind, and the benevolence of Christianity is the great principle of human action, persecution will never be resorted to, either for extirpating error or enforcing belief in any opinions. An enlightened mind will at once perceive, that in punishing erroneous opinions by fines, imprisonment, racks, and flames, there is no fitness between the punishment and the supposed crime. The crime is a men

tal error, but penal laws have no internal operation on the mind, except to exasperate its feelings against the power that enforces them, and to confirm it more strongly in the opinions it has embraced. Errors of judgment, whether religious or political, can only be overturned by arguments and calm reasoning, and all the civil and ecclesiastical despots on earth, with all their edicts, and bulls, and tortures, will never be able to extirpate them in any other way. For the more that force is resorted to to compel belief in any system of opinions, the more will the mind revolt at such an attempt, and the more will it be convinced, that such a system is worthless and untenable, since it requires such irrational measures for its support. It can only tend to produce dissimulation, and to increase the number of hypocrites and deceivers. An enlightened mind will also perceive, that such conduct is no less irreligious than it is irrational; for, where persecution begins religion ends. Religion proclaims "peace on earth and good will to men;" all its doctrines, laws, and ordinances are intended to promote the happiness of mankind, both in " the life that now is and that which is to come." But actions which tend to injure men in their persons, liberty or property, under the pretence of converting them from error, must be directly repugnant to the spirit of that religion which is "pure, and peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated," and to the character of that Benevolent Being whose "tender mercies are over all his works." If our religion required for its establishment in the world, the infliction of civil pains and penalties on those who oppose it, it would be unworthy of being supported by any rational being; and it is a sure evidence that it is not the genuine religion of the Bible, but error and human inventions,