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Even, however, if the Church ideal could be maintained, it would be at the cost of something better than the formal abstinence from evil,—of human liberty. If we can conceive a generation that abstained from saying what it thought for fear of Church censures; that was sober, moral, and cleanly-mouthed, not because it regarded vice as evil, but because it feared fine, imprisonment, or disgrace; that talked with the tongue of By-ends, while within was all uncleanness, we should have the picture of a society more hopelessly corrupt than the world has ever yet seen. The sons of such men would be born, suckled, and bred in lies; would inherit the lust of the flesh, the craven spirit, and the tortuous intellect. In vindicating for every man the right to think mistakenly, to speak foolishly, and to live within limits riotously, the State has vindicated also the right to believe on conviction, to denounce error fearlessly, and to lead sweet and wholesome lives, untainted by Pharisaism, and not degraded by the reproach of a profitable conformity. When we measure the actual results of liberty, we find surely that they are good, even in the domain where liberty is accounted most dangerous. The offence of sacrilege is so peculiar by its nature, that what appears revolting profanity to the Conservative may seem nothing more than a splendid iconoclasm to the Eeformer. In ages when there has been a religion established by law, the policy of those who assailed it has invariably been to show their contempt for it and lessen it in popular estimation by acts of public indignity. Not to mention the early Christians, who, it may be said, could not compromise with such flagrant errors as those of Paganism, we find that Protestantism, even in England, which has been conspicuously temperate, carried on its war against the