, and between God and the conscience only,
should a third party be permitted to interfere so far as even to say,
'I tolerate you? I tolerate your Independency--your Episcopacy--your
Presbyterianism: you are a Baptist, but I tolerate you?' There is an
insult implied, it has been said, in the way in which the liberty
purports to be granted. It bestows as a boon what already exists as
a right. We want no despot to tell us that he gives us leave to
breathe the free air of heaven, or that he permits us to worship God
agreeably to the dictates of our conscience. Such are the views with
which a majority of the British people regard, in these latter times,
the right to tolerate; and regarding a _right_ NOT to tolerate, they
must be more decided still. The Free Church, then, must lay her
complaint before them. She must tell them, that such is the
oppression to which her people are subjected, that she would be
but too happy to see even the beggarly elements of the question
recognised in their behalf; that she would be but too happy to
hear the despot of a province pronounce the deprecated 'I tolerate
you,' seeing that his virtual enunciation at present is, 'I do NOT
tolerate you,' and seeing that he is powerful enough, through a
misapplication of his rights and influence as the most extensive of
British proprietors, to give terrible effect to the unjust and
illiberal determination. The Free Church, on this question, must
raise her appeal everywhere to public opinion, and we entertain no
doubt that she will everywhere find it her friend.

But how is its power to be directed? How bring it to bear upon the
Duke of Sutherland? It is an all-potent lever, but it must be
furnished with a fulcrum on which to rest, and a direction in which to
bear. Let us remark, first, that no signal privilege or right was
ever yet achieved for Britain, that was not preceded by some signal
wrong. From the times of Magna Charta down to the times of the
Revolution, we find every triumph of liberty heralded in by some gross
outrage upon it. The history of the British Constitution is a history
of great natural rights established piecemeal under the immediate
promptings of an indignation elicited by unbearable wrongs. It was not
until the barrier that protected the privileges of the citizen from
the will of the despot gave way at some weak point, that the parties
exposed to the inundation were roused up to re-erect it on a better
principle and a surer founda