nalties upon the heterodox, but have
not yet learned those amenities which lend so sweet and gentle a dignity
to debate. In looking over the dusty pamphlets which entomb so many
clerical controversies of our Colonial times, it has often seemed as
though we had lighted on some bar-room wrangle, translated out of its
original billingsgate into scholarly classical quotations and wofully
wrested tests of Holy Writ. This illusion seems all the more probable
when we remember that the potations which inspired the loose jester and
the ministerial pamphleteer of that period but too often flowed from the
same generous tap. This phase of theological dispute is best typified in
that eminent English divine who wrote,--"I say, without the least heat
whatever, that Mr. Wesley lies." The manner in which such reverend
disputants sought to force their conclusions on the reluctant has not
infrequently reminded us of sturdy old Grimshawe, the predecessor of
Bronte at Haworth, of whom Mrs. Gaskell reports, that, finding so many
of his parishioners inclined to loiter away their Sundays at the
ale-house as greatly to thin the attendance upon his ministry, he was
wont to rush in upon them armed with a heavy whip, and scourge them with
many a painful stroke to church, where, doubtless, he scourged them
again with still more painful sermons.

But, bad as were the controversial habits of the clergy, those of their
skeptical opponents were still worse. That was surely a strange state of
things where such freethinking as the "Age of Reason" could win a wide
circulation and considerable credit. But it was not merely the vulgar
among freethinkers who then substituted sophistry and declamation for
honesty and sense. The philosophers of the Institute caught the manners
of the rabble. What a revolting scene does M. Martin sketch in his
"Essay on the Life and Works of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre"! "The
Institute had proposed this as a prize-question:--'What institutions are
best adapted to establish the morals of a nation?' Bernardin was to
offer the report. The competitors had treated the theme in the spirit of
their judges. Terrified at the perversity of their opinions, the author
of "Studies of Nature" wished to oppose to them more wholesome and
consoling ideas, and he closed his report with one of those morsels of
inspiration into which his soul poured the gentle light of the Gospel.
On the appointed day, in the assembled Institute, Bernardin read his