ce between
them, but it sounded better, to say that one of these rationalizing
free-and-equal religionists had been made a convert than any of those
half-way Protestants who were the slaves of catechisms instead of
councils, and of commentators instead of popes. The subtle priest played
his disciple with his finest tackle. It was hardly necessary: when
anything or anybody wishes to be caught, a bare hook and a coarse line
are all that is needed.

If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty,
if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And
the temptation is to some natures a very great one. Liberty is often a
heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity for perpetual choice
which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In common life we
shirk it by forming habits, which take the place of self-determination.
In politics party-organization saves us the pains of much thinking
before deciding how to cast our vote. In religious matters there are
great multitudes watching us perpetually, each propagandist ready with
his bundle of finalities, which having accepted we may be at peace.
The more absolute the submission demanded, the stronger the temptation
becomes to those who have been long tossed among doubts and conflicts.

So it is that in all the quiet bays which indent the shores of the great
ocean of thought, at every sinking wharf, we see moored the hulks
and the razees of enslaved or half-enslaved intelligences. They rock
peacefully as children in their cradles on the subdued swell which
comes feebly in over the bar at the harbor's mouth, slowly crusting with
barnacles, pulling at their iron cables as if they really wanted to be
free; but better contented to remain bound as they are. For these no
more the round unwalled horizon of the open sea, the joyous breeze
aloft, the furrow, the foam, the sparkle, that track the rushing keel!
They have escaped the dangers of the wave, and lie still henceforth,
evermore. Happiest of souls, if lethargy is bliss, and palsy the chief
beatitude!

America owes its political freedom to religious Protestantism. But
political freedom is reacting on religious prescription with still
mightier force. We wonder, therefore, when we find a soul which was
born to a full sense of individual liberty, an unchallenged right
of self-determination on every new alleged truth offered to its
intelligence, voluntarily surrendering any portion of i