en call this statute "ferocious," but
as it is still unrepealed there is no legal reason why it should not
be enforced. Curiously, however, the reservation which was inserted to
protect the Jews has frustrated the whole purpose of the Act; at any
rate, there never has been a single prosecution under it. So much of
the statute as affected the Unitarians was ostensibly repealed by the 53
George III., c. 160. But Lord Eldon in 1817 doubted whether it was
ever repealed at all; and so late as 1867 Chief Baron Kelly and Lord
Bramwell, in the Court of Exchequer, held that a lecture on "The
Character and Teachings of Christ: the former defective, the latter
misleading" was an offence against the statute. It is not so clear,
therefore, that Unitarians are out of danger; especially as the judges
have held that this Act was special, without in any way affecting
the common law of Blasphemy, under which all prosecutions have been
conducted.

Dr. Blake Odgers, however, thinks the Unitarians are perfectly safe, and
he has informed them so in a memorandum on the Blasphemy Laws drawn
up at their request. This gentleman has a right to his opinion, but no
Unitarian of any courage will be proud of his advice. He deliberately
recommends the body to which he belongs to pay no attention to the
Blasphemy Laws, and to lend no assistance to the agitation for repealing
them, on the ground that when you are safe yourself it is Quixotic to
trouble about another man's danger; which is, perhaps, the most cowardly
and contemptible suggestion that could be made. Several Unitarians were
burnt in Elizabeth's reign, two were burnt in the reign of James I., and
one narrowly escaped hanging under the Commonwealth. The whole body was
excluded from the Toleration Act of 1688, and included in the Blasphemy
Act of William III. But Unitarians have since yielded the place of
danger to more advanced bodies, and they may congratulate themselves on
their safety; but to make their own safety a reason for conniving at the
persecution of others is a depth of baseness which Dr. Blake Odgers has
fathomed, though happily without persuading the majority of his fellows
to descend to the same ignominy.

It will be observed that the Act specifies certain heterodox _opinions_
as blasphemous, and says nothing as to the _language_ in which they
may be couched. Evidently the crime lay not in the _manner_, but in
the _matter_. The Common Law has always held the same view, and my