other draw down on the head of the user of them pillory and imprisonment. It is certainly a very unequal conflict when one of the combatants may make use of an argument or a halter at his discretion. It is like a battle between a pugilist and one armed with a stiletto, which, though he may not use at first, he knows he can use if hard pushed. Such defenders of Christianity would do well to remember, that the means they are resorting to are those which so successfully promoted the cause of infidelity in France. Had the same pains been bestowed in refuting the productions of Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire, which were employed in burning their books and punishing the authors, France and the whole of Europe might, at this day, have exhibited very different spectacle.

The progress of liberal opinion has been very rapid, indeed, of late years; and though Judges and Attorney-Generals, whose daily pursuits, certainly so unfavourable to liberal and comprehensive reasonings, are generally among the last persons to shake off antiquated prejudices, yet they too, however slowly, will, unquestionably, at last, be borne down by the tide of public opinion.