ly companions, upright friends. What
more could be demanded of any religion?

The Romish Church led away from the Constitution as by law established.
Dissent set up private authority, which could no more be permitted in
religious than it was in political matters; it meant dissension,
revolution, and the upheaval of tried and trusted associations.
Therefore, the Church of Rome and the teachings of Dissent were alike
dangerous; and against both, whenever they attempted the possession of
political power, he waged a fierce and uncompromising war. "Where sects
are tolerated in a State," he says, in his "Sentiments of a Church of
England Man," "it is fit they should enjoy a full liberty of conscience,
and every other privilege of free-born subjects, to which no power is
annexed. And to preserve their obedience upon all emergencies, a
government cannot give them too much ease, nor trust them with too
little power."

Swift had no passionate love for ideals--indeed, he may have thought
ideals to be figments of an overheated and, therefore, aberrated
imagination. The practically real was the best ideal; and by the real he
would understand that power which most capably and most regulatively
nursed, guided, and assisted the best instincts of the average man. The
average man was but a sorry creature, and required adventitious aids for
his development. Gifted as he was with a large sympathy, Swift yet was
seemingly incapable of appreciating those thought-forms which help us to
visualize mentally our religious aspirations and emotions. A mere
emotion was but subject-matter for his satire. He suspected any zeal
which protested too much for truth, and considered it "odds on" it being
"either petulancy, ambition, or pride."

Whatever may have been his private speculations as to the truth of the
doctrines of Christianity they never interfered with his sense of his
responsibilities as a clergyman. "I look upon myself," he says, "in the
capacity of a clergyman, to be one appointed by Providence for defending
a post assigned me, and for gaining over as many enemies as I can.
Although I think my cause is just, yet one great motive is my submitting
to the pleasure of Providence, and to the laws of my country." If anyone
had asked him, what was the pleasure of Providence, he would probably
have answered, that it was plainly shown in the Scriptures, and required
not the aid of the expositions of divines who were "too curious, or too
narrow, i