well-governed realm," making the exposure for sale of books whatever mere opinion they may contain, "severely punishable," I pronounce it as pernicious as unjust, and hesitate not to declare in the face of this court, my firm conviction, that in any realm really well-governed, truth, religious or irreligious, would be allowed to fight its own battle, and not as here it is, be clogged by aid from the civil power. In any really well-governed realm, so far from attempts being made to bludgeon men into silence, if they dared to speak heterodoxly, measures would be taken to encourage the free and honest expression of opinion, for the inevitable effect of coercing thinkers into a seeming acquiescence with creeds, fashionable or established, is a plentiful crop of hate, disgust and hypocrisy. Her Majesty's advocate doubtless knows better what is the law, in respect of those who prefering physical to mental bondage, plainly avow their conscientious objections to scriptures Christians call holy, and religious Christians call true; but perhaps I know better than he what ought to be the law-nor do I deny that common law is on the learned prosecutor's side, but confidently affirm that common SENSE is on mine. Really one cannot but suspect either the sanity, or the orthodoxy of Her Majesty's advocate, as while professing friendship for christianity, he is damaging it far more than the most virulently active infidels—the first apostles of that religion disclaimed the use of any other than spiritual weaponsthey repeatedly and emphatically announced that the weapons of their warfare were not carnal-they had faith in what they called the word of God. Her Majesty's advocate on the other hand, seems to have far more faith in the arm of the flesh than the arm of the spirit. The weapons of his warfare against unbelief, being the perfection of carnality-instead of relying with christian confidence upon the word of god and the spirit of godinstead of viewing them as a barrier, an all-sufficient barrier to the progress of whatever is opposed to them; he calls upon you gentlemen for aid, as though the word of god needed aid from the word of men, or the sword of the spirit was powerless if not backed up by the sword of the magistrate!!! Dr. Chalmers declared in 1829, while addressing a public meeting not half a mile from this court, that it was precisely because the weapons of Christianity's first apostles were not carnal, that they were so mighty to the pulling down of strongholds-He told his hearers that the kingdom of God which is not of this world, refuses to be indebted to any other. He told them that reason, scripture, and prayer, compose the whole armoury of Protestantism; but gentlemen of the jury it is plain that Her Majesty's advocate is of a widely different opinion-my appearance here to day is demonstrative proof of his voidness of faith in such armoury as Dr. Chalmers pronounced the whole of Protestanism; and the ability of God's kingdom to resist all human attacks-had Her Majesty's advocate one grain of faith in the competency of Holy Scriptures, or the Christian religion to withstand the fiercest assaults of their enemies, he would have parted with his right arm, rather than lift it in their defence. I recommend him to study the writings of that eloquent divine just mentioned, who has so often denounced persecution with Demosthenic energy, such study would greatly mend the Christianity of Her Majesty's advocate, as well as his morals. would open his eyes to truths against which they now are closed, it would teach him that since the practice of intolerance has prevailed in reformed Europe, Protestantism has come down from its vantage ground; that since it wrested

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from its Popish enemies the weapons of persecution, and commenced to wield and brandish them itself, it has been brought to a dead stand. secution has in truth palsied Protestantism—not only is it an outrage on every principle of justice, but the very antipode of everything expedient. If in that box there are religious bigots-I lay aside all hopes of convincing them how fatal to religion itself are prosecutions levelled against those who attack it. Bigots, especially religious ones, are as little to be moved by facts or arguments, as rocks are when foaming billows split themselves against their flinty ribs; they are cased in armour that reasons' shafts cannot penetrate; they may be convinced of anything save their own credulity, which though palpable to everybody else, is to them a profound secret. character of a religious bigot is a detestable compound, of which imbecility, cowardice, and obstinacy are the chief ingredients-if he has had a vision commanding him to butcher his own offspring, he will rather discuss the propriety of putting them to death, than interrogate the vision as doubtful, or the effect of a delirious imagination, because he regards it as sacred, and all examination as BLASPHEMOUS. If you, gentlemen of the jury, are individuals of so odious a character-if you are prepared to hunt down every man who publishes opinions hostile to your own-if you hand me over to the secular arm, because I attack orally or through the press, opinions you deem usefully true, but which I deem perniciously false, if in a word you are bigots, I expect nothing from your sense of decency or of justice; if however you entered that box with a determination to return an honest and consistent verdict, I am sure of an acquittal-yes gentlemen of the jury, I confidently repeat the words, " sure of an acquittal," if you are not bigots, as it will be easy for me to expose the egregious folly of the charge Her Majesty's law officers have been so wrong-headed as to trump up against

me.

The gravamen of that charge is, that I am a Blasphemer, or at least a vender of books containing blasphemy, which in truth is the same thing. In refutation of this silly charge, allow me, in the first place, to remind you of the very free and knavish use that has been made from time immemorial of those words, Blasphemy and Blasphemer-It has been observed by an eloquent preacher, that Socrates the wise was a blasphemer; Aristides the just was a blasphemer; Jesus Christ the righteous was a blasphemer; and he might have added every man, in every age of the world was a blasphemer, who raised his voice in condemnation of state priests, and state religions. Oh, how ill does it become men whose god was stigmatised— nay, crucified as a blasphemer; to cry blasphemy, blasphemy, when their religion is attacked. Look into the New Testament, gentlemen, and you will find that when Jesus Christ said, "I and my father are one," the Jews took up stones to stone him; and when Jesus asked them, "For which of those works which I have shown ye from my Father do ye stone me?" The Jews answered him saying-" For a good work we stone thee not, but for Blasphemy, and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." Evidently therefore, Jesus was, in the opinion of the Jews, a blasphemer.— They understood not how a man could be a god, and though a god, still a man. It was therefore perfectly natural for such a savagely intolerant race to accuse of blasphemy the utterer of such language. Their religion taught them to stone blasphemers, and of course to kill "every soul that breathed what they considered blasphemy," was a religious duty. We read in Deutero

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that the Israelites were commanded to stone heretics with stones that nomy, they die; no marvel then that the Jews with such a command before their eyes, should have stoned Stephen as a blasphemer, and threatened to do the like for Jesus Christ; and if Her Majesty's advocate sincerely believes the Pentateuch was written by divine inspiration, it is by no means marvellous that he should originate and carry forward a prosecution of heretical publishers 0 -the Pentateuch furnished abundance of precedents for such, and even worse proceedings. An American writer of celebrity has remarked, that whenever man undertakes to be god's avenger, he becomes a demon-Now this is what all persecutors of heretics and blasphemers do-they presumptuously as wickedly interpose between their unknown god and the consciences of their known fellow men. They presume to interpret Omniscience, to defend Omnipotence, and to prove Omnipresence! They attribute to their incomprehensible idol, the passions which rage within their own breasts; proud, malignant, and vicious themselves, they wickedly ascribe pride, malignancy, and vice to that god they affect to honour; and would fain force all to worship, Nebuchadnezzar like, the monstrous idol they raise up. This, gentlemen, is a species of tyranny none should tamely submit to. It is a tyranny none do submit to, but the intellectually imbecile, or the sordidly interested. Surely the horrible effects which have resulted from attempts to tyrannize over conscience, should serve as a beacon of awful warning to the persecuting bigots of this generation; but their lust of domination in what they call spiritual things, is only equalled by their utter ignorance of every useful lesson that history teaches, and I must state the fact, that no order of Christian religionists of whom history speaks, ever permitted to others the same measure of mental freedom they claimed for themselves. This tells fearfully against the character of Christianity itself; for it seems incredible that the professors of a just religion should have been so uniformly unjust in their practices. Their stoning blasphemers, and murdering by wholesale the Canaanites and other idolatrous people, does in nowise astonish me, for they were taught to believe in a jealous, angry, vengeful, deceptious deity; a deity so jealous of his favorite people, as to declare by the mouth of Joshua, that if they forsook him and served strange gods, he would turn and do them hurt, ind consume them after he had done them good; a deity so angry as to slay eventy thousand guiltless men, because David, at his own suggestion or noving, saw fit to order a census of the people; a deity so vengeful, if Samuel nay be believed, as to destroy all that the Amalekites had, slaying both nan and woman, infant and suckling, aye, and even their oxen and sheep, amels and asses; a deity so deceptious as to send among his creatures, 'strong delusions that they might believe a lie.” Ι say, my Lords and Gentlemen, a people who from their cradles had been taught to believe in he reality of such a deity-could not fail to become deceptious, vengeful, ngry, and jealous-could not fail in short, to be like the deity they were structed to worship.

Stubbornly convinced that the human race must renounce its idolatrous ́orship, and the belief from which that worship springs, before it can start irly on the race of improvement, I have thought it part of my bounden uty to spread abroad that kind of knowledge, which, once generally difised, will be found incompatible with, and therefore destructive of, those iperstitions which have corrupted society to the very core. If Christianity

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is not of these, it will not perish amid the general wreck of antiquated rubbish; for what is true, can suffer nothing from the destruction of error, any more than justice can suffer from the extirpation of injustice. But I warn Her Majesty's Advocate against the insane notion that men are to be christianized by penal laws, or that any religion can be strengthened by destroying the writings and closing the mouths of its rejectors. When the pious Emperors Constantine and Theodosius decreed that all writings adverse to the claims of Christianity, as then by law established, should be committed to the flames, they doubtless by that stroke of policy succeeded in quenching for a while antagonism to their religion, and materially aided in the work of preparing Europe for a thousand years of darkness; but, thanks to the inventors of printing, that darkness is fast dissipating before the rising sun of knowledge which has already infused into the priesttrampled multitude so much warmth and force of intellect, that no crowned haters of heterodoxy can successfully play over again the bigotted pranks of a Constantine or a Theodosius. Her Majesty's Advocate may again, as he has already done, employ agents to enter my shop, and legally strip it of all writings adverse to the claims of the Christian Religion; he may again rejoice over the capture of books which it is more easy to burn than to answer; but neither Her Majesty's Advocate, nor Majesty herselfaided though she were by all the monarchs, princes, armies, and advocates of Europe, can extinguish, or even sensibly check, the strong desire which almost universally exists to freely investigate-freely print-and freely speak upon religious topics. Now is indeed the time when Christians should exhibit to the whole world an example of justice, when they should no longer madly attempt to frighten men from reasoning, or terrify them out of their reason, when they should rely on the "goodness of their cause, and on the bases of its orderly and well laid arguments. Let them do this, and they will be respected by foes as well as friends; by Infidel as well as Orthodox. But, if they are not disposed to do this; if, instead of adopting a policy of conciliation, they persist in their wild attempt to coerce dissenters into silence; if, instead of faithfully relying upon reason, scripture and prayer, they rest the body of their religion upon such dangerous crutches as courts like this afford, they ensure its destruction, and earn for themselves contempt and execration. Any religion, or system of laws that obstructs the current of thought will inevitably be swept away by it. If Gospel story may be relied on Christ taught that "truth shall set,us free," a sentiment in which I heartily concur. No Christian can feel a profounder conviction, than I now do, that truth will emancipate the world. when the world will accept of truth. But how are the denizens of this planet to be taught truth, or enabled to acquire it, while truth telling remains the most dangerous of all employments; when the tongue and the press are free, then, and only then, can those truths it most concerns us al to know, be brought within the reach of all. Does any one suppose tha in a country like this where we hear such noisy boastings about civil an religious liberty, and see almost every hour such flagrant outrages of both, truth, concerning religion, will be freely spoken. He understand human nature very imperfectly who expects sincerity in a country whos inhabitants load with wealth and honor those who flatter their prejudice and drag before tribunals such as this, men whose only crime consists

etting those prejudices at defiance. It may, as indeed it has been said, hat the liberty I ask amounts to licentiousness. Well, admitting for the ake of argument that what I am charged with having written, is the very icence of liberty, still it remains for Her Majesty's lawyers to shew, how tate prosecutions or magisterial meddlings, can remedy the evil. To me it eems that the only corrective of impurity is purity; of falsehood is truth. Cultivate a popular taste for the pure and the true, and, depend upon it, one will be found to countenance or esteem the false and corrupt. The lergy of Scotland, like the clergy everywhere else, declare truth to be on heir side; if so, why need they fear the false books, so called, which I tand accused of publishing? False did I say; I very much question vhether they think them false though they loudly proclaim them so, for, in he very teeth of their oft repeated declaration about the mightiness of hristian truth, its almost miraculous potency, they shew their want of onfidence in that truth by calling upon authority to put the opposing falseood down-not scriptural, nor reasonable, nor prayerful authority; but The authority of high courts of justiciary or law courts of police.

Reflecting men are astonished, and well they may be, to see the pains aken by civil functionaries to keep alive the detestable spirit of religious anaticism. They are amazed that individuals of station and abilities hould throw oil upon the flames of bigotry, instead of labouring to extinuish them. This is the crime of Her Majesty's advocate. To serve

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me paltry state purpose he is recklessly doing all that in him lies to excite the human breast passions which every enlightened lover of his species ust anxiously desire to annihilate. Why, if his doctrine regarding those e is pleased to denominate as "blasphemers," were consistently acted upon, urope would again be the theatre of unholy religious wars, again would e soil be moistened by the best blood of its people,-again should we see quisitions and star chambers bring into requisition their instruments of rture, stifling the voice of truth amid the shrieks and groans of its votaries. hame on those who would revive the bloody practice of that dark epock, hen Rome's minions trampled down beneath the iron heel of spiritual espotism every vestige of liberty! I do not accuse Her Majesty's advocate any tendency Romeward, I do not accuse him of wishing to forward the nbitious projects of those Popish plotters who even within the walls of ir Universities avow their resolve to unprotestantize Europe; but I do cuse him of forwarding those projects and strengthening that resolve. rosecutions such as these are the very things popish conspirators most reice to behold, and it is quite natural they should do so, for in their breasts ve of Romanism and desire for its universal acceptation swallow up all her feelings. Now it is well known that the Roman Catholic Church is tensely hated by Protestants, but more on account of her persecuting spirit an any other single cause. Yes, gentlemen, it was the intolerant practice * that church in her days of pride, rather than her doctrine, which is at is moment the prime drawback to her reassumption of undivided thority. But if Protestants imitate the persecuting practice of Papists, e latter will not fail to turn the lucky incident to account: and say why ould Protestants, who are themselves persecutors, find fault with the rsecutions authorized by Papists; why should they, who cast men into ison for bringing into contempt their christian religion be so furious