this
remark. Not on extraordinary occasions only, but as a matter of course,
whenever the news of a conversion to Romanism, or to Irvingism, or to
the Plymouth Sect, or to Unitarianism, is brought to us, we say, one and
all of us: "No wonder, such a one has lived so long abroad"; or, "he is
of such a very imaginative turn"; or, "he is so excitable and odd"; or,
"what could he do? all his family turned"; or, "it was a reaction in
consequence of an injudicious education"; or, "trade makes men cold," or
"a little learning makes them shallow in their religion." If, then, the
common voice of mankind goes for any thing, must we not consider it to
be the _rule_ that men change their religion, not on reason, but for
some extra-rational feeling or motive? else, the world would not so
speak.

Now, for ourselves, we are not quarrelling with this testimony,--we are
willing to resign ourselves to it; but we think there are parties whom
it concerns much to ponder it. Surely it is a strong, and, as they ought
to feel, an alarming proof, that, for all the haranguing and protesting
which goes on in Exeter and other halls, this great people is not such a
conscientious supporter of the sacred right of Private Judgment as a
good Protestant would desire. Why should we go out of our way, one and
all of us, to impute personal motives in explanation of the conversion
of every individual convert, as he comes before us, if there were in us,
the public, an adhesion to that absolute, and universal, and unalienable
principle, as its titles are set forth in heraldic style, high and
broad, sacred and awful, the right, and the duty, and the possibility of
Private Judgment? Why should we confess it in the general, yet promptly
and pointedly deny it in every particular, if our hearts retained more
than the "magni nominis umbra," when we preached up the Protestant
principle? Is it not sheer wantonness and cruelty in Baptist,
Independent, Irvingite, Wesleyan, Establishment-man, Jumper, and
Mormonite, to delight in trampling on and crushing these manifestations
of their own pure and precious charter, instead of dutifully and
reverently exalting, at Bethel, or at Dan, each instance of it, as it
occurs, to the gaze of its professing votaries? If a staunch
Protestant's daughter turns Roman, and betakes herself to a convent, why
does he not exult in the occurrence? Why does he not give a public
breakfast, or hold a meeting, or erect a memorial, or write a pam