t of exposing to ridicule the persons of any particular sect.
Every one knows the reply of the great Prince of Conde to Louis XIV when
this monarch expressed his surprize at the clamour excited by Moliere's
Tartuffe, while a blasphemous farce called _Scaramouche Hermite_ was
performed without giving any scandal: "C'est parceque Scaramouche ne
jouoit que le ciel et la religion, dont les devots se soucioient
beaucoup moins que d'eux-memes." We believe, therefore, the best service
we can do our author in the present case is to shew that the odious part
of his satire applies only to that fierce and unreasonable set of
extra-presbyterians, whose zeal, equally absurd and cruel, afforded
pretexts for the severities inflicted on non-conformists without
exception, and gave the greatest scandal and offence to the wise, sober,
enlightened, and truly pious among the Presbyterians.

The principal difference betwixt the Cameronians and the rational
presbyterians has been already touched upon. It may be summed in a very
few words.

After the restoration of Charles II episcopacy was restored in Scotland,
upon the unanimous petition of the Scottish parliament. Had this been
accompanied with a free toleration of the presbyterians, whose
consciences preferred a different mode of church-government, we do not
conceive there would have been any wrong done to that ancient kingdom.
But instead of this, the most violent means of enforcing conformity were
resorted to without scruple, and the ejected presbyterian clergy were
persecuted by penal statutes and prohibited from the exercise of their
ministry. These rigours only made the people more anxiously seek out and
adhere to the silenced preachers. Driven from the churches, they held
conventicles in houses. Expelled from cities and the mansions of men,
they met on the hills and deserts like the French Huguenots. Assailed
with arms, they repelled force by force. The severity of the rulers,
instigated by the episcopal clergy, increased with the obstinacy of the
recusants, until the latter, in 1666, assumed arms for the purpose of
asserting their right to worship God in their own way. They were
defeated at Pentland; and in 1669 a gleam of common sense and justice
seems to have beamed upon the Scottish councils of Charles. They granted
what was called an _indulgence_ (afterwards repeatedly renewed) to the
presbyterian clergy, assigned them small stipends, and permitted them to
preach in such desert