ly as the seal of immunity.
Another would plead atavism, and say he got his religious instincts
from his great-grandfather, as some do their complexion or their temper.
Others would be compelled to confess that the belief of a wife or a
sister had displaced that which they naturally inherited. No man can
be expected to go thus into the details of his family history, and,
therefore, it is an ill-bred and indecent thing to fling a man's
father's creed in his face, as if he had broken the fifth commandment in
thinking for himself in the light of a new generation. Common delicacy
would prevent him from saying that he did not get his faith from his
father, but from somebody else, perhaps from his grandmother Lois and
his mother Eunice, like the young man whom the Apostle cautioned against
total abstinence.

It is always the right, and may sometimes be the duty, of the layman to
call the attention of the clergy to the short-comings and errors, not
only of their own time, but also of the preceding generations, of which
they are the intellectual and moral product. This is especially true
when the authority of great names is fallen back upon as a defence
of opinions not in themselves deserving to be upheld. It may be very
important to show that the champions of this or that set of dogmas, some
of which are extinct or obsolete as beliefs, while others retain their
vitality, held certain general notions which vitiated their conclusions.
And in proportion to the eminence of such champions, and the frequency
with which their names are appealed to as a bulwark of any particular
creed or set of doctrines, is it urgent to show into what obliquities or
extravagances or contradictions of thought they have been betrayed.

In summing up the religious history of New England, it would be just
and proper to show the agency of the Mathers, father and son, in the
witchcraft delusion. It would be quite fair to plead in their behalf the
common beliefs of their time. It would be an extenuation of their acts
that, not many years before, the great and good magistrate, Sir Matthew
Hale, had sanctioned the conviction of prisoners accused of witchcraft.
To fall back on the errors of the time is very proper when we are trying
our predecessors in foro conscientace: The houses they dwelt in may have
had some weak or decayed beams and rafters, but they served for their
shelter, at any rate. It is quite another matter when those rotten
timbers are used in