Raymond has shown (4) how it was that Christian intolerance was
gradually broken down. "A Jew may sue at this day, but heretofore he
could not; for then they were looked upon as enemies, but now commerce
has taught the world more humanity."

Lord Coke treated the infidel as one who in law had no right of any
kind, with whom no contract need be kept, to whom no debt was payable.
The plea of alien infidel as answer to a claim was actually pleaded in
court as late as 1737. (5) In a solemn judgment, Lord Coke says (6):
"All infidels are in law _perpetui inimici_; for between them, as with
the devils whose subjects they be, and the Christian, there is perpetual
hostility". Twenty years ago the law of England required the writer of
any periodical publication or pamphlet under sixpence in price to give
sureties for L800 against the publication of blasphemy. I was the last
person prosecuted in 1868 for non-compliance with that law, which was
repealed by Mr. Gladstone in 1869. Up till the 23rd December, 1888, an
infidel in Scotland was only allowed to enforce any legal claim in court
on condition that, if challenged, he denied his infidelity. If he lied
and said he was a Christian, he was accepted, despite his lying. If he
told the truth and said he was an unbeliever, then he was practically
an outlaw, incompetent to give evidence for himself or for any other.
Fortunately all this was changed by the Royal assent to the Oaths Act on
24th December. Has not humanity clearly gained a little in this struggle
through unbelief?

1 Omychund v. Barker, 1 Atkyns 29.

2 D'Costa. D'Pays, Amb. 228.

3 Hansard cxvi. 381.

4 Lord Raymond's reports 282, Wells v. Williams.

5 Ramkissenseat v. Barker, 1 Atkyns 61.

6 Coke's reports, Calvin's ease.

For more than a century and a-half the Roman Catholic had in practice
harsher measure dealt out to him by the English Protestant Christian,
than was even during that period the fate of the Jew or the unbeliever.
If the Roman Catholic would not take the oath of abnegation, which to
a sincere Romanist was impossible, he was in effect an outlaw, and the
"jury packing" so much complained of to-day in Ireland is one of the
habit survivals of the old bad time when Roman Catholics were thus by
law excluded from the jury box.

The _Scotsman_ of January 5th, 1889, notes that in 1860 the Rev. Dr.
Robert Lee, of Greyfriars, gave a course of Sunday evening lectures on
Bib