d the sincere heart of a child.

Is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of a noble and
candid adversary? Is it a crime to compliment a lover of justice, an
advocate of liberty; one who devoted his life to the elevation of man,
the discovery of truth, and the promulgation of what he believed to be
right?

Can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying
and heroic life? Is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave
of John Stuart Mill? Is it heretical to pay a just and graceful
tribute to departed worth? Must the true Presbyterian violate the
sanctity of the tomb, dig open the grave, and ask his God to curse the
silent dust? Is Presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no
excellence, of no purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral
grandeur outside of its barbaric creed? Does it still retain within
its stony heart all the malice of its founder? Is it still warming its
fleshless hands at the flames that consumed Servetus? Does it still
glory in the damnation of infants, and does it still persist in
emptying the cradle in order that perdition may be filled? Is it still
starving the soul and famishing the heart? Is it still trembling and
shivering, crouching and crawling, before its ignorant confession of
faith? Had such men as Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill been
present at the burning of Servetus, they would have extinguished the
flames with their tears. Had the Presbytery of Chicago been there,
they would have quietly turned their backs, solemnly divided their
coat-tails and warmed themselves.

Third. With having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of
predestination.

If there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination
is that doctrine. Surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing to one who is
laboring, struggling and suffering in this weary world, to think that
before he existed, before the earth was, before a star had glittered in
the heavens, before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his
destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his
birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain!

Fourth. With having failed to preach the efficacy of vicarious
sacrifice.

Suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was about to be
hanged--the Governor acting as the executioner. And suppose just as
the doomed man was to suffer death, some one in the crowd should step
forward and say, "I am willing to di