Men of all creeds have ever admitted that he who is held responsible, ought to be free. The slave, the minor, the controlled, are by common consent absolved from amenability, because deprived of freedom. No man can be justly considered responsible for any opinions he may hold, unless he is left perfectly free with regard to them.

By free discussion only can truth be established-in the concurrent or dissentient opinions of mankind is found the best test of the correctness or incorrectness of opinions, and those to whom free expression is denied, are deprived of these invaluable aids in the discovery of truth. If Atheists are to be considered responsible to society and to heaven for their opinions, it is of all things the most unjust that they should be denied freedom of expression. It violates the great principle of justice upon which mankind in all ages have been agreed. To stigmatise Christians as unjust, may be severity, but can lovers of justice act as they do? May not that religion be justly and successfully called in question which is in harmony with prosecutions for blasphemy.

Those who unfortunately care little for justice, provided their religious views obtain currency, or think that the restraints of religion must be preserved at any expense, it may be useful to remind, that these ends are effectually defeated by prosecutions for blasphemy. The responsibility of man to the supposed author of religion, is the vital principle of christianity, and it is also the principle which constitutes the " necessary restraint so much lauded by those who are only concerned for the expediency of religion. But since those feel no responsibility who are not free to act, the Atheist who is deprived of the privileges of free expression, is left irresponsible. Thus those who prosecute for blasphemy, whether actuated by a conviction of religious truth, or its utility, destroy the very principle upon which its vitality and supposed utility deperd.

It will be no valid objection to this reasoning to urge that much of what is prosecuted as blasphemy, can scarcely be considered as belonging to the legitimate province of free discussion. If exclusive selections are to be made of what is to be prohibited, the same rule will apply to much that Christians deem sacred. There is no security for Christians, but in leaving all opinions free.

Some will offer the idle objections that blasphemy prosecutions are not chargeable on Christians—that they originate with men ignorant of christianity's principles. To this I make but one answer.-There are Christians who understand their own principles-they boast their numbers and their power; let them exercise their influence! Let them put an end to these proceedings! They know that they are conducted in their name and avowedly on their behalf. If they approve them not, they have the power to prevent them, and if they do not, the world will understand the reason why.

That the legal interferences with freedom of expression will long resist the efforts of argument, there is too much to fear. But the consolation remains to the friends of Atheism-that while Christians continue to act with inconsistency, theysave their opponents the trouble of bringing them into contempt. A religion which exhibits itself before men, at war with the fairest principles of human action, at variance with those rules of equity by which the order and happiness of society is promoted, cannot fail to awaken the suspicion of the thinking, and ensure to itself the opposition of all wise men.

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The vilest part of prosecutions for blasphemy is, that they prevent the spread of useful opinions as often as they prevent the spread of bad ones. The best views, and the best men have been among those interdicted by blasphemy laws. The facility for putting down thought by power is immense. Religion is a wide-spread and facile engine of oppression. A religious jury can be found in every assize town, who will declare it blasphemous to love a flower if somebody with a wig on told them so. * Persecution seldom spreads opinions; when it does so, it depends on the power of the party persecuted, and the bravery of the men who resist. Every man is not a Carlile. In every prosecution, for one man who offers successful opposition, a hundred are intimidated. We have cases in which importance has been given to sentiments, by prosecution, but history is silent concerning those views which have been hunted into obscurity, and if not annihilated, have been retarded for ages. It is undoubtedly mean in an attorney-general to pursue opinions with the law's power, instead of leaving them to reason's influence. It is below the dignity of human nature so to act-it is unwise-it is unjust-it is all these, and more; but it cannot be denied that it is too often successful, and it is on this account that I ground my strongest opposition to it. If penalties and imprisonment were ineffectual oppositions-if they uniformly promoted what they are intended to crush, why there would be little occasion for regret. It is because truth is retarded, because mean men can say to thought, "thus far shalt thou go and no farther," because the bright fruition of intellect is often withered by the ban, that men should rise up and terminate these fatal and dangerous proceedings.

This view of the effects of persecution is not the common one, nor the one I formerly expressed, but it has long appeared to me as inconsistent to endeavour by Anti-Persecution Unions to put down persecution for opinions, if opinions were thereby spread. It would seem more wise to leave persecution alone, since it did such prime service to truth. Much experience has convinced me that persecution is to be deprecated, both for its own sake and for the influence it exercises. Christians may

rejoice in this confession, if they can rejoice in the injustice which I have pointed out as consequent on their conduct-if they can forget the infamy which they earn to themselves, and the defeat with which resolute opposition has often covered them. But they may do well to remember that in putting down opinion by prosecutions, they are, if men are ever awakened to the iniquity of the proceeding, putting down themselves.

I do not conceal from myself what Lord Brougham has well expressed, that "persecution has often spread that which nothing but persecution could spread." This is true, as I have before admitted, when the endurance of a Carlile, or a Paterson, has been opposed to it. Dr. Johnson is reported to have said to Mayo, a dissenting minister, "the only method by which religious truth can be established is by martyrdom. The magistrate has a right to enforce what he thinks; and he who is conscious of the truth has a right to suffer. I am afraid there is no other way of ascertaining the truth, but by persecution on the one hand, and enduring

Not a very long time ago a Mormon Preacher was apprehended in Cheltenham, and committed to take his trial for blasphemy. The charge against him was that he had said that "the elements of Euclid were as true as the Bible." Common sense, with great difficulty, prevailed, and the man was liberated.

it on the other." No man denies the magistrate's power, but all may justly question the propriety of its exercise in matters of opinion. The best test of truth is discussion, not persecution, but when persecution is employed to suppress opinion, the best friend of truth is he who bravely endures. it. There is no other mode of saving it, and, by determination and persistency, truth may proudly triumph over its meanest foes. Though truth is not immortal, it is the best of blessings while it lives, and a Paterson, a Finlay, and a Roalfe, who struggle in the hope that some new truth may have a voice in the world, deserve the gratitude, in proportion that the persecutor deserves the execration, of mankind.

If I appear to estimate persecution's influence differently from Mr. Paterson in the following defence, if I differ somewhat from my friends generally on this point we all agree in the determination to put it down. If I think it more fatal than they, my opposition to it is not less ardent. In the view I have taken, I think there is a new encouragement to the friends of liberty. To reveal persecution as fatal to truth, is to invest it with that character which will best ensure to it the lasting hatred of A disease, supposed to be comparatively harmless, is passed by with indifference, but when once discovered to be fatal, men are instantly on their guard against it, and all the resources of science are put forth to subdue it. When persecution is viewed in this light, the persecuting Christian becomes the common enemy of liberty, and the man of expediency, his criminal patron-the victim of persecution rises into importance from the vital nature of his struggle, and men feel that in supporting him they are supporting the cause of truth.

men.

Nor is this view weakened by the supposition that the persecuted blasphemer may be the advocate of error-that he expresses himself in an unnecessarily offensive manner. These are false and deceptive distinctions intended to set a barrier between the sympathies of men labouring for a common object. Let no evasion mislead, nor jesuitry darken this question! The contest is not one of propriety of expression-there is no assumption of the truth of the opinions advocated, but of the right to publish them. It is a struggle against legal interference in matters of opinion, a struggle for the right of free discussion. In the words of Whiteside, "Every thing in comparison with that great right sinks into insignificance. Destroy that right, what will preserve the spring of public freedom fresh and pure? Destroy the freedom of discussion, and you dry up the sources of your freedom. Oh! it is true there have been extravagances and absurdities in the use of that right; but when in the exercise of truth have there not been both? Free discussion first gave us the Reformation. Free discussion first struck down tyranny, and established the liberty under which we live. The spirit of enquiry which it has generated has revealed the secrets of science, and the wonders of nature. Cling, therefore, to the right of free discussion, as you would preserve your lives."

In this dissertation I have used the words atheist and blasphemer, because for them I have chiefly pleaded, and because I have had no desire, by employing neutral terms, to obtain an assent to my positions which would be withheld if they were displayed in the plainer manner.

Education is so important an agent of improvement and liberty that

I cannot pass from this discussion without giving to it a recommendation which this subject suggests. It is easy to see that prosecutions for blasphemy would fall to the ground if a few verdicts of juries were recorded against them, and easy as it would be for one intelligent man to cause this, no such one is found. If reason could prevail but a few times over bigotry -if the members of a jury were but educated men-if they could but carry their views from their box to the general interests of truth—if in attending to points of law they also attended to the claims of justice, and, in their verdicts remembered equity, the victory over intolerance would be for ever complete.

Education is invested with talismanic importance when we contemplate the revolutions it might achieve in the jury box. Bad laws would be

But

enacted in vain if verdicts could not be obtained to enforce them. The intelligent jury-man might become the legislator of his country. oppression is nurtured in the arms of ignorance. Trial by jury is that solitary point where the power of the government is entrusted into the hands of the people. But of this, advantage is seldom taken by reason of the ignorance which prevails. Trial by jury will not only be the palladium, but the birth place of liberty, when education is diffused to every man.

G. JACOB HOLYOAKE.

INTRODUCTION.

TRIALS for Blasphemy are enduring testimonies against religion, records of noble struggles for liberty, and repositories of the best arguments in favour of impiety. The following trials are the minutes of proceedings of our Protestant inquisition in the 19th century, taken by the Anti-Persecution Union, and laid before the higher tribunals of public opinion, to have passed upon modern Christians the indignant sentence of impartial men, and the execration of posterity.

It is not flattery to say, that two men like Thomas Paterson are not given to one cause in a century. In disinterestedness, bravery, and endurance, he has no known equal. No man has appeared capable of bearding religious tyrants after his fashion. But a short time previous to his visit to Scotland, he had endured in Tothill Fields' Prison, all the horrors that a House of Correction and religious tyranny could inflict for blasphemy in London. On the occasion of his trial in Bow Street, he delivered such a defence as was never before attempted under like circumstances, and probably never will. He has rendered a service to infidelity which lookers-on neither understand nor reward. Future time will reveal its value. The apprehension of Messrs. Finlay and Robinson for selling infidel books, was the occasion of his going to Edinburgh. He had just retired from publie action, to recover his health-impaired in Tothill Fields' Prison -and to follow literary pursuits in the company of his favorite friend-but he could not endure that the infidels' shops should be closed in Edinburgh, and he reluctantly left his retirement and went there. But for Paterson,