ttle connexion with it as with the
fashions of the season, or the state of the weather.

You see, Gentlemen, how a theory or philosophy, which began with the
religious changes of the sixteenth century, has led to conclusions, which
the authors of those changes would be the first to denounce, and has been
taken up by that large and influential body which goes by the name of
Liberal or Latitudinarian; and how, where it prevails, it is as
unreasonable of course to demand for Religion a chair in a University, as
to demand one for fine feeling, sense of honour, patriotism, gratitude,
maternal affection, or good companionship, proposals which would be simply
unmeaning.

5.

Now, in illustration of what I have been saying, I will appeal, in the
first place, to a statesman, but not merely so, to no mere politician, no
trader in places, or in votes, or in the stock market, but to a
philosopher, to an orator, to one whose profession, whose aim, has ever
been to cultivate the fair, the noble, and the generous. I cannot forget
the celebrated discourse of the celebrated man to whom I am referring; a
man who is first in his peculiar walk; and who, moreover (which is much to
my purpose), has had a share, as much as any one alive, in effecting the
public recognition in these Islands of the principle of separating secular
and religious knowledge. This brilliant thinker, during the years in which
he was exerting himself in behalf of this principle, made a speech or
discourse, on occasion of a public solemnity; and in reference to the
bearing of general knowledge upon religious belief, he spoke as follows:

"As men," he said, "will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfold
in ignorance, so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging
and treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic merit
of their actions, but according to the accidental and involuntary
coincidence of their opinions. The great truth has finally gone forth to
all the ends of the earth," and he prints it in capital letters, "that man
shall no more render account to man for his belief, over which he has
himself no control. Henceforward, nothing shall prevail upon us to praise
or to blame any one for that which he can no more change, than he can the
hue of his skin or the height of his stature."(7) You see, Gentlemen, if
this philosopher is to decide the matter, religious ideas are just as far
from being real, or representing anyth