of God for the good of their souls-as the appointed means of displaying to mankind, in their full glory, the power of the Bible and of religion to bless mankind here and to save them hereafter.

The glorious field for the defence of Christianity which would be opened if discussions upon these subjects were free, impresses my imagination so strongly that I feel indignation against those who would close it. This subject is too wide even to glance at here, but look at the whole series of books which constitute the canonical Scriptures. Where else do you see one thought running through the literature of 2000 years, gradually developed and enlarged in books so authentic that it is still possible for people to contest, bonâ fide, whether they have any detailed mistakes at all? Where else, my lord, do you find, as you do in the Gospels, the history of a life, which all the most civilized nations of the world have agreed to regard as divine, and which, in proportion as they have regarded it as divine, has been the means of raising them to all which men wish to attain? Where else do you find, as you do in the Epistles and the Acts, a manual of theology which all the researches of eighteen centuries have never exhausted? Upon all this, and upon much more, if time and place were proper, I could insist, but I can now say only this, that upon this subject it is impossible to enter except upon one condition, the condition of freedom; for, as a great poet says, "Love is for the free," and if you are forced to idolize the Bible it is impossible to love or to understand it. My lord, strongly as I feel the vital importance of this case to the interests of English law and English liberty-strongly as I feel how mighty those interests are, I declare I feel that its importance is even greater for the interests of Christianity itself.

And now, my lord, passing from the question of legisla

tion, let me conclude by addressing you once more as a judge. I have reminded you of one great precedent, the precedent of Lord Strafford, which is a landmark in English history; let me conclude by reminding you of another, which took place, I believe, during your lordship's boyhood, and may form part of your earliest recollections. I refer to the trials for high treason in 1794. In that case, an attempt was made to stigmatize the agitation for universal suffrage as amounting to the crime of high treason. It was said, if you agitate for universal suffrage, you must wish to establish democracy; if you wish to establish democracy, you must wish to depose the king; if you wish to depose the king, you endanger his life, and so by agitating for universal suffrage, you are traitors by imagining the king's death; and you incur the pains and penalties of the statute of Edward the Third. Þ need not remind your lordship of the result of those prosecutions. The history of the last seventy years shows that the right, the exercise of which it was proposed thus to stigmatize, has been the firmest pillar of the strongest monarchy, and of the only durable constitution, in the world. This case, my lord, is precisely the same, except that the chain of argument is weaker and longer; it is a case of constructive heresy, as that was a case of constructive treason. They say, because you do not take our view of Christianity you must intend to overthrow the Christian religion; because you do not believe that the Bible is infallible, you cannot believe that it contains all that is necessary to salvation. And, my lord, the issue is the same. The issue in 1794 was this, whether from that time, loyalty should mean a silent acquiescence in whatever happened to be established; or whether it should mean the reasonable service of free men to a constitution, which, whether perfect or not, was their friend, their glory and

protection. The issue now is whether the church is to strangle free and reverent inquiry, the only test of truth; whether men are to crouch before the Bible as an idol, as an inanimate Pope; or whether they are to honour it as the vehicle of the word of God, the everlasting Gospel of Christ. My lord, if you maintain the right which Dr. Williams has asserted, no one need fear for Christianity, or the Bible, for they may be well assured that they have nothing to dread for either but the interference of power for their protection. If, on the other hand, you condemn Dr. Williams, then, indeed, it will be a dark day for the Church of England. Truth, wherever it may be, no doubt will triumph in the end, but in that triumph the clergy of the Church of England will have no voice and no share.

My lord, I have reminded you of the resemblance between 1794 and 1862. I assure you I do not forget the difference. In that case the greatest orator that ever honoured the English bar defended the State against the Crown, by an appeal to the law of the land. In my case it has fallen to the lot of an obscure and inexperienced man to attempt by the same appeal to defend the church against the clergy. My lord, the public voice was then in favour of an acquittal, for every one felt that the rights which he held most dear were at stake. In the present case, I fear that by an inversion of English sympathies hardly ever witnessed before, public feeling is against the accused. When I say public feeling, I mean that loud and noisy part of it which succeeds in making itself heard: not the opinion of quiet or thinking men. My lord, an ignorant panic, as I have said, already dreads Dr. Williams for having said openly what other writers have said with little more reserve. A cynical and sceptical minority is indignant that a clergyman of the Church of England

should dare to use his mind, and should not be punished as a criminal for having done so. My lord, it is with all the greater confidence that I look up to you, for I am quite sure that if your lordship could be warped at all from the straight line, it would not be in the tyrannical direction. If I could suppose that an English judge would leave the straight path, I know he would not leave it to trample on an accused and unpopular man. My lord, I feel no fear, for I am sure that your lordship will look beyond the cynical and ignorant clamour; you will look beyond the obscure advocate to whom you have listened with so much patient indulgence; you will look to the very right and truth of the cause itself; for be it attacked how it may, and be it defended how it will, it is a cause which might dignify the greatest genius that ever wore these robes; which might enlist the warmest sympathies of the human heart; for it is the cause of learning, of freedom, and of reason-the learning of the most learned, the freedom of the freest, and the reason of the most rational church in the world.

332

NOTES.

(A.—p. 129.)

Baxter's authority having been attacked, I append Dr. Wordsworth's observations on the book from which the extract in the text is made. They They are to be found in the Preface to his Christian Institutes, p. xxiv.

แ

"But there was one case in which something of apology and "explanation may reasonably be looked for. I refer to the use "I have made of the writings of Richard Baxter, especially in "the adoption of one piece in the first volume, of great length "and of corresponding importance, particularly when we con“sider the kind and description of the work, and the station of "prime responsibility and dignity which it sustains in our "series; I speak of his book entitled The Catechism of Families, useful also to Schoolmasters, and to Tutors and "Students in the Universities. How, it will be asked, comes " recourse to have been had, for a catechism more especially, to 66 a Nonconformist minister, and he, too, one around whose name so many painful associations and remembrances connect "themselves, as is the case with Richard Baxter? All this, it "must be confessed, is but too true; and I did not, therefore, "decide on this choice without some reluctance, much reflec"tion, and repeated consideration.

"Baxter, it is confessed, often was heady and perverse, and "lived for a great many years, and died a Nonconformist minister. "But it is true also that, being such, he was likewise a duly "ordained presbyter of the Church of England; such an one, too, as that after the darkest season of his stormy and turbid