ceived at a period of life, when the mind was by its legitimate exercise capable of discerning truth, and not unconsciously imbibed before reason had snatched from the hand of Imagination the power of swaying the mental energies, we might congratulate ourselves upon the tenacity with which we held principles early embraced. If the only evil resulting from such an education of the mind were an unconquerable and inveterate obstinacy of attachment to early opinions, which would destroy comprehensiveness of thought and preclude all liberality of views, we should have ample ground of complaint. But there is an evil of far more momentous magnitude, which is the natural consequence of taking principles 'on trust,' or forming them by a partial and perverted use of reason. We refer to that pride of opinion, which begets towards the sentiments of others, an uncharitableness and illiberality, which is generally in an inverse ratio with the amount of knowledge we possess, and with the extent of investigation, we have bestowed upon them. We naturally think our own opinions, no matter how they were formed, are right, and not satisfied with the consciousness that we are in the right; and every one else in the wrong, we must exhibit towards those who differ from us, a spirit of intolerance, by way of confirming us more strongly in our own views. Candor in investigating the doctrines of others, a desire to embrace truth, wherever we find it, and a due allowance for opinions conflicting with our own, are of all others, sentiments the most difficult for the natural mind to acquire. To change radically this state of the mind, and to gain an admission and unshaken power for these ennobling influences is the highest and most arduous task of philosophy,―a task, we may add, which is too often hopeless and unsuccessful. For the reason is not only to be convinced and guided by the pole-star of truth, but, what is far more difficult, prejudice, which has gangrened our mental constitution, must be rooted out, and our pride of opinion, which has been the nurse of so much complacent self-conceit must be abased before the simple power of right and justice. When the mind is thus re-organized, then will the terms impartiality and unbiassed judgment, so common in the mouths of bigots, be something more than delusive cant and become what they really are, the most sternly significant of realities.

If we trace the rise and progress of the principle of intolerance, we shall find it most clearly developed in that state of society where the common mind has been least under the influence of civilization, and of course to a great extent, incapacitated for comprehensiveness of thought or liberality of views. To its influence, in our conception, can be traced chiefly, the state of the common mind during what are generally called the dark ages in Europe. Men of that day seem to have quietly settled down in the opinion that they had reached the acme of human advance

ment, and their motto in every department of action seems to have been, there can be no reform, and there shall be no reform.' This sentiment was not only widely prevalent in matters of government, but their views of philosophy, of religion, of every subject in fact upon which mind could exert an influence, seem deeply imbued with the same bigoted spirit. Such was the melancholy state of the common mind for a period of six centuries, and it presents a picture assuredly humiliating enough to the pride of our nature. But if the review of this era can win so little of our admiration, surely. that which succeeded it-the era of the discovery of printing and the revival of letters-must excite our deepest wonder, and call forth the tribute of our warmest gratitude. It was then that freedom of thought assumed the place of illiberal dogmatism-that the spirit of toleration touched the dead waters, and gave life and energy to all that would come under its healing influence. As a consequence, mind rose anew and vigorous; the incubus, which had weighed it down for ages, was thrown off, and it stood forth to vindicate in its might and majesty its lofty prerogative. A spirit of free inquiry went abroad; truth was once more the end of the philosopher's aims; religion was purified of the dross with which the general spirit of the age had defiled it; in short men thought for themselves, and as must always be the case where thought is free, a spirit of mutual forbearance and courtesy towards conflicting opinions, was gradually infused into the minds of the people.

We have made these remarks as introductory to the discussion of a question, in which we have always taken a deep interest, and which involves the principles of toleration we have been endeavoring to unfold. We refer to the course of public opinion in this country, in reference to the Roman Catholic religion and its adherents. Any one who reflects upon the state of society here, must be readily convinced, we think, that public opinion is a tyrant, as remorseless in its decrees, and as able to exact obedience to them, as the haughtiest despot the world has ever borne with. If then, this power be directed against any particular set of men or any particular set of opinions, those men and those opinions are placed under the yoke of a proscription, which is more galling, because every attempt to relieve themselves brings down an opposition the more determined and the more resistless. It is needless, on the present occasion, to institute an analysis of public opinion; suffice it to say, there is as little regard shown to truth and justice in its composition, as there is an exhibition of these qualities in its operation, after its power has become consolidated and absolute. An enlightened public opinion is the best, perhaps it is the only influence which can rightly control society under a form of government like ours; but when that power acts blindly, when its energies are ignorantly misdirected, it becomes a tremendous

agent, not of good but of evil, not the corrector of abuses in the social system, but the remorseless tyrant over individual mind and the right of private judgment. It is then the concentration of the spirit of intolerance in its worst form, and exercises all the functions, which that spirit employed in the darkest days of its history.

Suggested by these reflections, the thought has not unfrequently occurred to us, while listening to discussions concerning the Roman Catholic religion within these walls, that should a professor of that faith enter this institution, and observe the spirit in which these discussions were carried on, he would be impressed with sentiments alike of suprise and mortification. He would be painfully surprised, because amid halls of science and learning, where every pursuit should tend to foster true liberality of sentiment, where the blessed influence of Christianity should diffuse a comprehensive charity, he would find that the spirit of the fire and the faggot was not yet extinguished. He would be mortified, for he would discover that his most holy faith, that faith which he had lisped in his infancy, and which he had been taught to look upon as the revelation of a great and good God, was made, in the mouths of ignorance and bigotry, a by-word for scorn. Against the prevalence of such a spirit, which would single out any one Christian sect, and hold it up before the world as "the mother of abominations," we can never cease to exert our feeble voice.

In the first place we conceive it to be a very bad policy, totally inadequate to compass even its own unworthy ends, to fasten in the public mind sentiments of intolerance towards any Christian sect. This consideration has an additional weight, when we find such sentiments existing in a country such as ours, and in the breasts of Protestants. The very fact that a man is the advocate of Protestant Christianity, should of itself be a sufficient reason, that he should exhibit no dogmatic interference with the religious views of his neighbors. The very existence of Protestantism, it should be remembered, can be traced to an overweaning desire, on the part of certain ambitious Churchmen, to exclude from the breasts of the members of their own communion, any sentiment of tolerance towards conflicting views; and the very moment that such a spirit infuses itself into the ranks of Protestants, the seeds are sown which must beget corruption, decay, and death. Look at the era of the Reformation, and we find every subject of complaint concentrated to one point, the usurpation of the Church over the right of private judgment. Look abroad now, and wherever we see the same principle developed, we find in a proportionate degree the evils which then attended its influence. Hence every attempt made by an ascendency to gain despotic power, redounds to its own failure and disgrace,

a fact, which it would be well for very many zealous persons to bear clearly in mind.

That public opinion in this country is strongly arrayed against Roman Catholics, is a position which we presume no one will be inclined to dispute. The ignorant, the weak, the irresolute, have chimed in with the general clamor; and the echoes sound far and wide over the land. It must be naturally inferred, that under these circumstances this sect is placed in a situation greatly embarrassing, suffering all the evils which can result from a hatred as morbid as it is intense. The causes of this prevailing sentiment it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, clearly to trace. They are so closely inwoven with the frame-work of our minds by the magic effects of association; they have their origin, to so great an extent, in the power of early habits and education; in short, they have become with us so like a part of our mental constitution, that any attempt to root them out, seems doing an act of violence to the laws, which govern our being, and distorting our faculties from their legitimate field of inquiry. Under such circumstances, we can arrive best at the truth in this matter, by examining whether this state of public feeling cannot be resolved into something very like ignorance of the real nature and tendency of the Roman Catholic doctrines. It would, it strikes us, be crediting one of the grossest libels on human nature to suppose for a moment, that any set of men, no matter how degraded or superstitions, could profess a belief in a religion, which to them was a reality, composed of the mass of inconsistencies and absurdities, which some very active Protestants are pleased to call the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic faith. The very zeal, which is shown by some good people to make Catholocism synonymous with every dark and revolting iniquity, openly promulgating doctrines so distilled in the alembic of hell, as to make men their own self-murderers, is enough to startle any candid inquirer, and make him ask himself, whether a religion, thus characterized, could ever find a response in the heart of any man, who had not actually taken leave of his senses. It is one of the most remarkable results of the present state of public feeling in this country, that men actually believe that Catholics really are what they are represented to be by their enemies. In many minds, the mention of this sect of Christians awakens no other associations than those connected with the grossest impurity and licentiousness, the worst forms of despotism and persecution, or the most odious hypocrisy and priestcraft. Of course, minds thus educated are by far the best judges of the real tendencies of this form of faith. To them investigation is needless; they see intuitively, and without the possibility of error, the true bearings of the whole subject; and they should be immortalized in the hearts of their countrymen, for having portrayed in such vivid colors the dangers which threaten us from the spread of Christianity.

To come back to the sober truth on this subject, there is one general principle, which should always guide us in our estimate both of the Roman Catholic and every other form of Christianity. There are certain great fundamental doctrines which are admitted by all; but there are certain other minor considerations, which have been the subject of controversy among the ablest minds that the world has ever produced; and these very minds, having no other object than to arrive at truth, have reached very different conclusions. Now, if these great men have differed so widely among themselves on points of faith purely speculative, ought we not to have some sentiments of charity, and not only of charity, but of respect, towards men of inferior abilities who have adopted opinions which have been enforced by the utmost resources of genius and learning? This view of the subject, we conceive, will infuse into our pride of opinion, that leaven of candor, which is indispensable to a due appreciation of the opinions of others; it will save us from those asperities of feeling which the bitterness of controversy so often engenders, and more than all, it will make us feel that we should neither despise the understanding, nor impugn the motives of those, who differ from us in their religious opinions. Of one thing we may be certain, that just as soon as a rising sentiment of anger obscures the light of reason in our speculations, we are in no situation successfully to pursue and attain truth. In this view of the subject, a proficiency in theology is not necessary to understand the peculiar views of the Catholics; all that it concerns us to know, is that their creed is but one of a thousand, which are adopted by as many different sects of Christians, all agreeing on fundamental points of doctrine, but differing to a greater or less degree in matters of inferior importance.

The inseparable connection which exists in many minds, between Catholicism and political degradation, which makes, as it has been well expressed, "every Catholic a dragon inflamed with a thirst for political power," is a subject of greater importance, and will, of consequence, claim more of our notice. The origin of this sentiment it will not be difficult, perhaps, to trace. Men are apt

to look back on the dark ages in Europe, and ascribe the perpetration of every crime, which can result from the power of unloosed passion, in the absence of any other great source, to the direct influence of the Church. Now, there are two theories in relation to the state of Europe during this era, which we shall lay candidly before our readers, and they may take their choice. The one is, that all the crime and bloodshed which disgraced Europe for so many centuries, was the result of the ambition of the Church, which fomented quarrels and disputes among the different states, in order that its own power might be consolidated and extended. The other is, that this state of affairs was the natural consequence of that ignorance and barbarism, which brooded dark over men's minds, from the downfall of the Roman empire to