public sacrifices to Jupiter. This, of course, he could not do; and, consequently, his religion brought upon him the most cruel persecutions. The religion of Mohammed was in its outset, and is now, sustained mainly by intolerant fanaticism. The sword early carried the Koran over almost half the globe; and persecuting bigotry is now ready to stifle every inquiry which would reveal the folly of Islamism. A multitude of minor religious sects have arisen among the Mohammedans themselves. Their feuds are equalled in rancor only by those which have existed among Christians. It is matter of grief, but it is most probably true, that what has been called the odium theologicum has never risen to such a degree of acrimony-never flamed forth with such vehemence as it has among those who profess to be the followers of Jesus. Strange, that a religion whose sum and essence is love, love even to our enemies, should have served as a pretence for the direst hate!

As early as the year A. D. 259, Christianity was declared, by the Emperor Gallienus, a lawful religion. Still it was subject to more or less molestation under various pretexts. Constantine, by publicly professing adherence to Christianity, first gave it civil ascendency over every other religion. He issued a decree of general toleration,* which is of so liberal a nature as to give offence to bigoted Romanists, who have complained of it as placing Jews, Samaritans and heretics on the same footing with true Catholics. It was not long before Constantine was induced to modify his policy, so as better to suit the narrow spirit of his ecclesiastical counsellors. From this period the principle of toleration seems to have grown gradually weaker, and to have finally disappeared, until it was revived by the Protestant Reformation.

The despotic pretensions of the Popes, which obtained general acknowledgment throughout the western church as early as the eighth century, tended to crush the exercise of private judgment. The Romish hierarchy, gaining by degrees the complete control of the civil power in most Christian states, finally insisted on the infliction of death for every sentiment which it chose to brand as heresy. In earlier times, indeed, it had contented itself with enjoining penance, or at most with decreeing excommunication; but its boldness augmenting with its power, it pronounced, at length, against every deviation from the pre

*Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. Lib. X. cap. 5.

scribed faith, the penalty of imprisonment, and, in case of final contumacy, the forfeiture of life. The horrors of the Inquisition are familiar to all. The characteristic taciturnity of the Spaniards is attributed by Voltaire, to the influence of this diabolical institution. Even the researches of the natural philosopher were restrained by ecclesiastical intolerance.

As late as the 17th century, Galileo, who, in a work on the sun's spots, had advocated the Copernican system, was denounced as a heretic. He appeased his adversaries for a season by promising not to advocate a system which was generally regarded as derogatory to the Bible. Fifteen or twenty years afterwards, however, in 1632, he published his celebrated "Dialogue," in which the comparative merits of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems were ably discussed-a manifest preference being given to the latter. Though express permission to print the work had been obtained at Rome, its publication drew upon the author the severest persecution. A congregation of his enemies having examined the treatise, declared it pernicious, and summoned him before the Inquisition. After some months of imprisonment, he was forced to disavow positions which he knew were eternal truths. "Are these, then, my judges!" he once indignantly exclaimed, when withdrawing from the examination of men whose ignorance disgusted him. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life. Milton visited him during his confinement. The philosopher was then poor, old and blind. About the same period Descartes suffered much persecution in Holland on account of his opinions. He opposed the prevalent Aristotelian metaphysics with great boldness, and advocated the Copernican system. Voetius, a bigot of great influence at Ut echt, accused him of atheism, and even menaced him with death.

In these and many other recorded cases of persecution for opinion, it is clear that the true ground of hostility was not so much a sincere apprehension of mischief from the novel sentiments avowed, as displeasure at the independence which dared to break away from prescribed forms of thought. It was the spirit rather than the views of Galileo and Descartes which rendered them obnoxious to ecclesiastical tyranny.

France resisted the establishment of the Inquisition. And hence, we read of few instances of religious persecution in her history. But there is one which stands alone in point of horror, an eternal disgrace to human nature;-I mean the slaughter of

the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's day, in 1572. On this and thirty days ensuing, it is supposed that thirty thousand victims were offered up at the shrine of bigotry.

Protestantism finally gained the ascendency in many Christian countries. But even here, it is in vain and worse than in vain to shut our eyes to the workings of perverse human nature. The impartial historian must record, that no sooner was Protestantism triumphant, than it turned against the disaffected the very weapons from which it had itself suffered so severely. No wonder that some, seeing the supposed legitimate fruits of the two systems of religion to be equally horrible, were at a loss to decide which deserved the preference. English history affords ample justification of what I have just said. Fox's "Acts and Monuments," in three folio volumes, contain the martyrology of the Protestants under Catholic domination; and, by way of counterpart, Dodd's "Church History of England," also in three folios, presents the martyrology of the Catholics.

Singular it is, to notice how surely and closely religious persecution has followed religious power in its various mutations. The sufferer no sooner becomes the master, than he forgets the liberal principles he maintained in his humiliation; and partly, perhaps, from a natural, though wicked, desire of revenge, and partly from mistaken ardor in the cause of supposed truth, assumes the very character he abhorred and deprecated. Calamy has recorded, in four sad volumes, the sufferings of the two thousand non-conformist ministers under the act of uniformity, which was issued on St. Bartholomew's day, 1662. Much as the French Bartholomew's day of 1572 exceeded in horror the English one of 1662, the Presbyterians did not fail to draw a parallel between them. The non-conformist divines were indeed driven to difficult straits. Several were forced to become tradesmen. Among these was the celebrated Samuel Chandler, the author of numerous literary productions, who kept a bookseller's shop in London. Opposed to Calamy's account stands Walker's "attempt towards recovering an account of the clergy of the church of England who were sequestered, harassed, etc., in the late times," i. e. during the government of Cromwell.

Of late, toleration of religious opinion has made great progress in Christendom. It is a long time since any man has been put to death for his theological sentiments, in a country claiming to be called Christian. We seldom hear of imprison ment or confiscation of estate for modes of Christian faith.

In

But the world-the Christian world even-has but just begun to see its way forward out of the mist of intolerant prejudice. all the states of Christendom, excepting our own, if indeed our own may fairly be considered an exception, civil penalties or disabilities of greater or less severity are yet attached to certain forms of religious opinion.

Long after the Reformation, the principles of religious toleration, as now understood, were almost unknown, and certainly not put in practice by any community. The first English divines of much note, who advocated this cause, were Jeremy Taylor and Bishop Hall; both of whom wrote upon the subject. About forty years later, in 1689, Locke published his first letter on toleration. The second appeared in 1690, the third in 1692. They were all written in Latin and published in Holland from motives of prudence. For the same reason, Bayle's Commentaire Philosophique, &c., which is substantially a treatise on toleration, purported to have been written by an Englishman, and to have been printed at Canterbury, in England. In reality, it was printed at Amsterdam, in 1686. Such was the caution required at the close of the 17th century, in the most enlightened Christian countries.

It has been with equal tardiness and difficulty that toleration of political opinion has made its way in the world. Civil despotism has naturally striven to crush freedom of sentiment and discussion. Quite recently, indeed, censure of the government has cost many a man his liberty, his estate, and even his life, in countries which have loudly boasted of the inviolability they gave to human rights.

The invention of printing has rendered incalculable service to the world, in promoting freedom of thought and discussion. It endued the spirit of reform with resources which despotism could not annihilate. The mass of mind in Europe, during the middle ages, was like a stagnant pool. The press communicated activity to the inert waters. A commotion began which has ever since been augmenting and which will not cease till all artificial and unwarrantable restraints upon human liberty are swept away. The adherents of tyranny perceived that the results of this invention, if it were left untrammelled, would be fatal to their interests. They strove to control it therefore; and for this purpose established a censorship of books. By this device, they hoped to use the mighty energy of the press in bowing the necks of men, with increased servility, to the yoke

of passive obedience. But the idea was vain. The press proved a hydra. Its inherent resources 'transcended the utmost power of destruction which could be brought to bear upon it. Crushed in one spot, it exhibited itself with new terrors in another.

Catalogues of prohibited books were early compiled. The Spanish Inquisition issued one in 1558, at the command of Philip II., and in 1559 the Holy Office at Rome published another. At the Council of Trent, Pius IV. was presented with a catalogue of books which the members denounced as unfit for perusal, and a bull of prohibition was accordingly issued. These catalogues were called Indexes. A simple Index is a list of books, no part of which was allowed to be read; an Index Expurgatorius is a list of books allowed to be read, if printed with certain omissions or other alterations. This expedient of tyranny, however, recoiled upon its authority. The Protestants reprinted and diligently circulated the Indexes; which served the convenient purpose of pointing out the books most worthy of their perusal.

Unfortunately for the success of these Indexes, moreover, they did not agree with each other. Being published at different places-Rome, Naples, Venice, Madrid, Antwerp, etc.—the discrepancies between them occasioned much scandal among heretics. As the publishing of lists of condemned works was found to be inadequate to their suppression, more frequent recourse was had to the expedient already in use of burning them in public. This was fully as ineffectual as the former. Indeed, it promoted the sale of the prohibited books to such a degree, that the publisher of the Colloquies of Erasmus is said to have used strenuous effort to procure the burning of his book, and to have reaped his reward.

An amusing anecdote relating to this subject, I will here present in the words of D'Israeli; to whose "Curiosities of Literature," I am indebted for several facts which I have already mentioned. "Tonstall, Bishop of London (whose extreme moderation, for the times, preferred the burning of books to the burning of their authors), to testify his abhorrence of Tindal's principles, who had printed a translation of the New Testamenta sealed book for the multitude-thought of purchasing all the copies of Tindal's translation, and annihilating them in the common flame. This occurred to him when passing through Antwerp in 1529; then a place of refuge for the Tindalists. He