some things, which you have been censuring in them. Not very consistent art thou."
"I don't puzzle my head over consistencies. I want to follow the bent of my own mind. What looks consistent to one may not to another. They believe in following where the spirit moves, and that's what I like. This feeling obliged to do something, because it is right, I don't believe in. If it is right, we must feel a desire to do it to be a virtue."
"I fear, Rosalind," said her father, "you would not be so willing as you think. What they mean by that is not original with them, neither is it confined to them. The dictates of conscience are to be obeyed, let them lead us where they will, as they often do, contrary to our inclinations. That would be hard for you. The cross must come before the crown. Freedom of conscience, which forms the basis of every religious organization at its birth, means the freedom to act according to our convictions of duty, however they may conflict with our own will, or the judgment of others, yet so imperative that only in yielding obedience to them can we obtain the peace of mind essential to happiness.
The higher our faculties, the greater the evil resulting from a perversion of them. Hence it is that religious despotism is more cruel and intolerable than any other, and the reaction in the effort to overthrow it often results in the other extreme, and repudiates, much that is good. The Puritan and the Quaker were the legitimate children of a profligate ministry, and a general corruption of church and state, who, instead of following in the wickedness of
