le to fight it. It is the same as the law against swearing,
both are dead letters and amount to nothing. They are not enforced
and should not be. Public opinion will regulate such matters. If
all who take the name of God in vain were imprisoned there would
not be room in the jails to hold the ministers. They speak of God
in the most flippant and snap-your-fingers way that can be conceived
of. They speak to him as though he were an intimate chum, and
metaphorically slap him on the back in the most familiar way
possible.

_Question_. Have you ever had any similar experiences before?

_Answer_. Oh, yes--threats have been made, but I never was arrested.
When Mr. Torrence gets cool he will see that he has made a mistake.
People in Philadelphia have been in the habit of calling the citizens
of Boston bigots--but there is more real freedom of thought and
expression in Boston than in almost any other city of the world.
I think that as I am to suffer in hell forever, Mr. Torrence ought
to be satisfied and let me have a good time here. He can amuse
himself through all eternity by seeing me in hell, and that ought
to be enough to satisfy, not only an agent, but the whole Bible
society. I never expected any trouble in this State, and most
sincerely hope that Mr. Torrence will not trouble me and make the
city a laughing stock.

Philadelphia has no time to waste in such foolish things. Let the
Bible take its chances with other books. Let everybody feel that
he has the right freely to express his opinions, provided he is
decent and kind about it. Certainly the Christians now ought to
treat Infidels as well as Penn did Indians.

Nothing could be more perfectly idiotic than in this day and
generation to prosecute any man for giving his conclusions upon
any religious subject. Mr. Torrence would have had Huxley and
Haeckel and Tyndall arrested; would have had Humboldt and John
Stuart Mill and Harriet Martineau and George Eliot locked up in the
city jail. Mr. Torrence is a fossil from the old red sandstone of
a mistake. Let him rest. To hear these people talk you would
suppose that God is some petty king, some Liliputian prince, who
was about to be dethroned, and who was nearly wild for recruits.

_Question_. But what would you do if they should make an attempt
to arrest you?

_Answer_. Nothing, except to defend myself in court.

--_Philadelphia Press_, May 24, 1884.

POLITICS AND BRITISH COLUMBIA.

_Quest