vil in Inquisitions of their own. Smithfield Auto da Fe's,
according to these consistent Christians, were wrong during the reign of
Mary, and right during the reign of her pious sister, 'Good Queen Bess.'
Such is the justice of superstition. Its votaries knowing themselves the
favoured of heaven, feel privileged to outrage and trample under foot
the great principles of sense, propriety, and honour. Between Catholics
and Protestants as regards these principles there is little to
distinguish; for in the race of abomination, they have kept pretty
nearly neck and neck. The author of this Apology has no sympathy with
either, but of the two much prefers Popery. There is about it a breadth
of purpose, a grandeur, and a potency which excites some respect, even
in the breast of an enemy. Unreasonable it assuredly is, but Christians
who object to it on that ground, may be told--religion was never meant
to be reasonable; and that an appeal to rational principles will as
little avail one religion as another, as little avail Protestant as
Roman Catholic faith. All religion is unreasonable, and, moreover, to
rationalize would be to destroy it. Hobbes could discover nothing in
superstition essentially different from religion, nor can we. He deemed
true religion as the religion which is fashionable, and superstition as
the religion which is not fashionable.

So do we, so do all absolute Atheists. The notion that false religion
implies the true, just as base coin implies the pure, will have weight
with those, and only those, who cannot detect the sophistry of an
argument _a rubii toto caelo differentibus_; or in plain English, from
things entirely different presumed to be similar. Between coin and
religion there is no precise analogy. False coin implies true coin,
because none are sceptical as to the reality of true coin, but false
religion does not necessarily imply true religion, because the reality
of true religion is not only questionable, but questioned. It is not
usual for money-dealers to be at issue as to the quality of their cash.
The genuine article will stand the test, and always passes muster. A
practised ear can easily decide between the rival claims of two
half-crowns, one genuine, the other spurious, thrown upon a tradesman's
counter. But where are the scales in which we can weigh to a nicety true
and false religions? Where is the ear so well practised and so
delicately sensitive as to distinguish the true from the 'number