ntastic
dresses, that confused mixture of violet, red, white, black, and
speckled garments, with heads shaved, with tonsures, or with short
hairs, with red hats, square bonnets, pointed mitres, or long beards, is
the standard of the Roman Pontiff. On his right you see the Greek
Pontiff, and on the left are the standards of two recent chiefs (Luther
and Calvin), who, shaking off a yoke that had become tyrannical, had
raised altar against altar in their reform, and wrested half of Europe
from the Pope. Behind these are the subaltern sects, subdivided from the
principal divisions. The Nestorians, Eutychians, Jacobites, Iconoclasts,
Anabaptists, Presbyterians, Wickliffites, Osiandrians, Manicheans,
Pietists, Adamites, the Contemplatives, the Quakers, the Weepers, and a
hundred others, all of distinct parties, persecuting when strong,
tolerant when weak, hating each other in the name of the God of peace,
forming such an exclusive heaven in a religion of universal charity,
damning each other to pains without end in a future state, and realizing
in this world the imaginary hell of the other."

Can it be doubted for an instant that sentiments like these are
derogatory to the Christian religion? And yet on grounds and reasons
_exactly these_, not _like_ these, but EXACTLY these, Mr. Girard founds
his excuse for excluding Christianity and its ministers from his school.
He is a tame copyist, and has only raised marble walls to perpetuate and
disseminate the principles of Paine and of Volney. It has been said that
Mr. Girard was in a difficulty; that he was the judge and disposer of
his own property. We have nothing to do with his difficulties. It has
been said that he must have done as he did do, because there could be no
agreement otherwise. Agreement? among whom? about what? He was at
liberty to do what he pleased with his own. He had to consult no one as
to what he should do in the matter. And if he had wished to establish
such a charity as might obtain the especial favor of the courts of law,
he had only to frame it on principles not hostile to the religion of the
country.

But the learned gentleman went even further than this, and to an extent
that I regretted; he said that there was as much dispute about the Bible
as about any thing else in the world. No, thank God, that is not the
case!

MR. BINNEY. The disputes about the meaning of words and passages;
you will admit that?

Well, there is a dispute about the