glimmered in holy zeal, blazes in bigoted fanaticism.
Thus, all persecutors may not, originally, be bad men, though their
practices are wicked. The very liberty of conscience which freemen
demand, must admit this to be possible in the conduct of those who
differ from us most widely in faith and politics.

Religious Conscience, therefore, is the firmest founder of the right of
forming and asserting Free Opinions; and when it has securely
established the great fact of Religious Freedom, it at once, as an
immediate consequence, realizes Political Freedom, which is nothing but
the individual right independently to control our personal destinies, as
well as to shape our conscientious spiritual destinies. The right of
free judgment asserts that Christianity put into vital exercise, in our
social or national relations, is, in fact, the essence of pure
democracy. It is liberty of action that produces responsibility--it is
equal responsibility that makes us _one_ before the law. To teach man
the humility and equality of his race, _as rights_; and to illustrate
the glorious lesson that from the cottage and cabin have sprung the
intellects that filled the world with light, it pleased the Almighty to
make a stable the birth-place of our Redeemer, and a manger his lowly
cradle!

* * * * *

When the valiant men of olden times had checked the corporate system of
theology in England and Germany, and established their right, at least,
_to think_ for themselves; and when the Reformation had subsequently
received a countercheck in Germany, England and France,--the stalwart,
independent worshippers, who could no longer live peacefully together
within their native realms, began to cast about for an escape from the
persecutions of non-conformity and the mean "tyranny of incapacitation."

The Reformation was the work of the early part of the sixteenth century.
The close of the fifteenth had been signalized by the discovery of
America, and by the opening of a maritime communication with India. The
East, though now accessible by water, was still a far distant land. The
efforts of all navigators, even when blundering on our continent, were,
in truth, not to find a new world, but to reach one already well known
for the richness of its products, and the civilization of its people.
But distant as it was, it presented no field for colonization. It was
the temporary object of mercantile and maritime enterprise, and a