of being the most eloquent man at the bar, could not but help believing that his talents were misplaced. "Oh Jacky, Jacky," would she say, "what a preacher was lost in you!" Moreover, one sentence from Paley would seem to contain all the actual argument which Mr. Lewis has laboured, as we venture to think, so inefficaciously. Paley has said, "Serious arguments1 are fair on all sides. Christianity is but ill defended by refusing audience and toleration to the objections of unbelievers. But whilst we would have freedom of inquiry restrained by no laws but those of decency, we are entitled to demand, on behalf of a religion which holds forth to mankind assurances of immortality, that its credit be assailed by no other weapons than those of sober discussion and legitimate reasoning." It was in enforcing the above passage, that Mr. Justice Erskine remarked, "Sober argument you may answer, but indecent reviling you cannot, and therefore the law steps in and punishes it." So far Paley, to whom the reply has been made, that a wise man "would rather be vituperated as an infamous scoundrel, than demonstrated to be irregular in his habits." And further, that an ancient authority has pointed out that the best way to meet ridicule is by serious argument, and serious argument by ridicule.

There is another authority who has also expressed shortly one of the points much laboured by Mr. Lewis, which it is worth noticing. Michaelis on the Mosaic law has argued that the doctrine, “that blasphemy ought not to be punished, appears to me to border upon. the persecution of religion; for thus the infidel would have a right to blaspheme and we should be obliged to bear it ;" and he adds, that to revile religion "is to persecute it." But let us now turn to the treatment which the subject receives in the year of grace and light, 1859.

Mr. Lewis's expansion of the doctrine of modified and undefined toleration may be read in the following passages:

as

'By "serious" the archdeacon must have meant "logical and sound" well as 66 sober," for it is very possible for sobriety of argument to reach the deepest depths of serious dulness, and, at the same time, to be so fallacious as not to have the slightest symptom of "fairness."

"Now, it would be mere disingenuousness, a mere evasion, were I to profess myself satisfied with the alternative offered of an equality of treatment to be extended to the defamers of Christianity, and the supposed defamers of unbelief. I shall not shelter myself under any such compromise! Part of my argument, indeed, will be, that there is nothing in unbelief to defame! It is plausible, but utterly false (as I shall hope to show), to assume that there is room, or material, here for any bargain. The man who rejects religion has nothing to offer which can entitle him to put the Christian under terms. There is no subject-matter for an exchange! The offence (supposing the fact of an offence to be established) is all on one side. How can any one defame infidelity, which, in its very nature, abjures all claim to veneration, and which says, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!' Its own description of itself confesses that there is no sacredness in it to desecrate. It may be arguable theoretically whether Christianity is or is not true, and the unbeliever is not sought to be precluded from denying its truth; but if I establish, as I hope to do, that Christianity may, for certain limited purposes, be treated by the State as it would be were it certainly known to be true, then we must take its own description of itself, and, according to that description, it offers sanctions with which disbelief has nothing to compare-against which it has nothing to set-off; sanctions which are of such a nature that an attack upon them may be indecent-may be profane; sanctions, moreover, which being profaned, there is no longer even equality (as I shall show), for Christian opinion (that equality which the unbeliever himself insists on), but a gross inequality, to the unfair hindrance and disparagement of those opinions.

"The arguments which establish, as I conceive, the right to visit blasphemy with legal penalties, are of two kinds. One class of arguments is derived from the essential nature of Christian doctrines, and the intrinsic difference between their sanctions and those of infidelity (if the latter can be said to claim any sanctions). In other words, from the very nature and character of Christian opinions, they occupy, in regard to protection from the State, a preferable position to disbelief. The other line of argument is either historical, or bases itself on existing facts.

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"The line of argument which I first venture to subinit, is derived, as I before said, from the very nature and character of Christian opinions. The essence of the Christian's faith—as we all know-is God, a future state, a revelation, sin, redemption, and a final judgment. Now, I admit that, in so far as we claim a right to punish the ridicule of Christian tenets, on the ground of their Divine character, we deny Mr. Mill's theory of the per

fect equality of opinion in the just view of liberty, and assert or insist on the soundness, or the right to assume the soundness, of our own as against those of the infidel, though we claim no right to persecute or be intolerant. If the law cannot take cognizance of the fact that Christian opinions have, or claim, Divine sanction, it cannot, on the mere ground of their alleged orthodoxy, deem the irreverent aspersion of those opinions a crime; or, supposing that the law could so treat it, then, upon the hypothesis I have mentioned, it must equally punish any contumely of the opinions of the infidel.

'This, then, is the position of the argument:-There is no attempt to proscribe freedom of opinion as such; and, for the purpose of the enjoyment of that freedom, it is agreed to be assumed, that the opinions commonly deemed orthodox may prove wrong, and those of the unbeliever sound. But, when the greater licence of derision and reproach is claimed, those who refuse to concede it, rely, though not exclusively, on the assumption that there is something in the protected creed which the State is at liberty to take notice of, as entitling it to that protection, and that in this respect the creed of the infidel cannot be treated as on a level with it. Undoubtedly, then, I am concerned to show that the sanctions of Christianity are matters which the State, i. e. the nation at large, may, for some purposes of police, inform itself of, without unduly infringing on what all allow to be the just liberty of opinion, and, therefore, of infidelity. * * * 'Now one thing, at all events, it may be expected the objector to our laws against blasphemy will concede:-The questions involved in religion may be of eternal moment. His own proposition is, that we can never be sure of our opinion being a sound opinion, or another's a false one. He says, that we cannot call any proposition certain, because we are not the judges of certainty. He says that creeds fluctuate, and that we find an improvement in the character of successive creeds. Now, this being his own view of opinions generally, he will admit that the Christian may be right, when he declares that religion is of eternal moment, and that Christianity furnishes the means of knowing what are the obligations, what the perils, and what the rewards of religion.

"It is, therefore, a fact, which no licence of opinion can dissemble, that a most serious, indeed, an awful choice, is presented when the rival opinions are Christianity on the one hand, and infidelity on the other. To say that this is a case merely of opinion against opinion is deceptive. Granted, for the purpose of argument, that either may be true, yet there is this difference -the one offers nothing, entails nothing, involves no risk of losing anything; it is a simple negation, and presents a mere

blank: the other warns, promises, and holds out consequences of never-ending importance to every one to whom the choice is tendered.

"Now, does it not flow from this, that the treatment which the mass of opinion ought to receive, must be such as is suitable to the more complicated, as well as to the simplest of the two sets of opinions-in other words, ought to be measured by the conditions of that opinion which involves responsibility-which professes to involve loss, deprivation, perdition; and not merely of that which claims to produce no sanctions, and entail no conse

quences.

"The two sets of opinions, in other words, exist under altogether different conditions. There is an atmosphere in which the one set of opinions could not live, even as opinions, which, nevertheless, would be quite compatible with the vitality of the other set of opinions. Reverence is essential to the one, but it is altogether indifferent to the other. What, then, does the very liberty of opinion itself require, on which the objector prides himself? It requires that these several rival opinions should be allowed to exist under conditions suitable to each. It is not equality, not liberty, to deny to the more complicated opinion any other range of existence or of action than that which suffices for the balder one. "This being so, the State, rightly enough, is called upon to take notice of each of these rival sentiments, and to allow them due play. It learns, therefore, the nature of each opinion, and the sanctions which it claims for itself. It is called upon to take care not to interfere unnecessarily with the propagation or action of either set of opinions. It agrees to do this. It sees the tremendous seriousness in particular of the Christian 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 fatal to 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 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

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opinions which are alleged to carry in their train eternal consequences of good or evil. Shall these be prevented from finding access to the poor, 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 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. The common mass are the weak and the unprotected, and no state of the world can be 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.

"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."

Mr. Lewis then concludes this particular view of the question by quoting "the touching language of Lord Erskine in Williams's case," referring, of course, to Mr. Erskine's speech as prosecuting counsel, which was certainly not one of the orator's great triumphs, and certainly not worthy of being quoted as an authority.