f which I am
endeavoring to give your Majesty an account has been condemned by the
suffrages of all the estates, and was long ago stabbed again and again
by partial sentences of courts of law, he undoubtedly says nothing
more than that it has sometimes been violently oppressed by the power
and faction of adversaries, and sometimes fraudulently and insidiously
overwhelmed by lies, cavils, and calumny. While a cause is unheard, it
is violence to pass sanguinary sentences against it; it is fraud to
charge it, contrary to its deserts, with sedition and mischief.

That no one may suppose we are unjust in thus complaining, you
yourself, most illustrious Sovereign, can bear us witness with what
lying calumnies it is daily traduced in your presence; as aiming at
nothing else than to wrest the sceptres of kings out of their hands,
to overturn all tribunals and seats of justice, to subvert all order
and government, to disturb the peace and quiet of society, to abolish
all laws, destroy the distinctions of rank and property, and in short
turn all things upside down. And yet that which you hear is but the
smallest portion of what is said; for among the common people are
disseminated certain horrible insinuations--insinuations which, if
well founded, would justify the whole world in condemning the doctrine
with its authors to a thousand fires and gibbets. Who can wonder that
the popular hatred is inflamed against it, when credit is given to
those most iniquitous accusations? See why all ranks unite with one
accord in condemning our persons and our doctrine!

Carried away by this feeling, those who sit in judgment merely give
utterance to the prejudices which they have imbibed at home, and think
they have duly performed their part if they do not order punishment to
be inflicted on any one until convicted, either on his own confession,
or on legal evidence. But of what crime convicted? "Of that condemned
doctrine," is the answer. But with what justice condemned? The very
evidence of the defense was not to abjure the doctrine itself, but to
maintain its truth. On this subject, however, not a whisper is
allowed....

It is plain indeed that we fear God sincerely and worship him in
truth, since, whether by life or by death, we desire his name to be
hallowed; and hatred herself has been forced to bear testimony to the
innocence and civil integrity of some of our people, on whom death was
inflicted for the very thing which deserved the h