Lambert.-" Is a government intolerant because it will not tolerate treason? If not, then the Jewish government was not intolerant, and the fact that God was its direct ruler does not change the nature of the case."

As shown above-and let not the reader forget this important fact—the same punishment was meeted out to idolaters; at least when they were not rich, wise, and powerful (as in King Solomon's case), under kingly as under theocratic rule, sometimes, even, at the hands of God's own prophets. The treason argument, therefore, as it proves too much, according to the laws of logic proves nothing. But look the question fairly in the face. Not only is it objected that so-called treason was punished, but that the penalty was often so brutally inflicted. The humanity of to-day, even in capital cases, for the highest grades of crime, requires that the offender should be put out of the way with as little suffering as possible. To inflict wanton pain on a criminal is revolting to the highest sense of justice and mercy. We never torture the living nor mutilate the dead.

The ancient Jews were at the same time a semi-barbarous and a wonderful people; barbarous, in that they, in common with other nations less advanced, were not free from the instincts of savagery; while wonderful in their capacity for intellectual development, in their devotedness to religious conviction, sometimes so fully and beautifully formulated in a spiritual faith and a perfect moral code; and wonderful in their persistent violation of every principle of ethics and every religious sentiment, in their noblest aspects, as spoken by their poets, priests, and prophets.

Paradoxical race! We cannot tell what it was without saying what it was not, nor what it was not without declaring what it was. What gems of thought, in its sacred books, do we find scattered among the rubbish of ceremony! What

sweet and holy-tempered precepts of charity and universal brotherhood dispersed among commands bloody and cruel! How much of the purely spiritual is defiled-if purity can be defiled-by the material and grossly sensuous! The stranger within thy gates, O Jerusalem, ye must treat with kindness. and becoming hospitality; for ye were once strangers in a strange land. How charming the sentiment, how persuasive the recall to memory of the time when Israel in bondage, among a strange people, begged the kindness which they are told to accord to others.

But what of the decree: that which dieth of itself ye may give to the stranger or sell to the alien, that he may eat it, but thou, Israel, being holy, must forego the luxury!

With regard to liberty of conscience the good Father seems somewhat confused. In one place his words imply that "speculative conscience" is admissible and not subject to the penalties of mundane law divine. In other words that a man is privileged to think what he pleases, if he does not speak nor formulate his ideas in overt acts. On the next page we are told that "The only liberty of thought which he (God) does not allow is the liberty to think error, to meditate evil, to plan crime.” But who shall decide what is error, what meditations are evil, and what plans criminal? Evidently the safest way is not to think at all, for the rod is over us and may fall, but to hire some ecclesiastic to think for us.

Lambert.-" On what evidence or authority do you assert that men, etc., were punished simply because they had not intelligence enough to understand the law?"

It would seem apparent that the wanderers in a desert wild would not have worshipped Aaron's calf if they had not honestly expected deliverance by it. And we may learn a lesson in later times from one greater than Moses and all the prophets. When the poor sufferer was nailed to the cross,

what was his prayer for those who pierced his flesh with the cold steel and pressed the vinegar and gall to the lips which had spoken the deliverance of humanity? "Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The grandest sermon, the holiest prayer and benediction ever uttered by mortal or immortal lips; for in a few short words is compressed the doctrine of universal love—of mercy infinite.

Should you, Father, seek to-day to muster recruits to war with idolatry, with purpose to convert, or exterminate with weapons of fire and sword, your victims to be men, women, and children born and unborn, how long would it take you to recruit a regiment even in Catholic countries? My dear Father, you would, at the end of your efforts, constitute your whole army, from high private to commander-in-chief, and, solitary and alone, like the king of France, minus the forty thousand men, you would march up the hill and so come down again. Yet in this age, when missionaries are a redundancy and education almost as free as the air we breathe, it would seem more just to punish idol-worship with death, than when black ignorance overspread the earth, and the moral sense slumbered in the human breast in germinal obscurity.

Do not say to those who advocate liberty of conscience that they plead for the right to do wrong; though they hold⚫ that there are thoughts and acts for which man is not accountable to man. Neither refer us to the insane-we are not addressing that class; nor to those erratic spirits who confound liberty with license. The boundary line which divides them we may not be able to define with absolute exactness, but when license appears as the counterfeit of liberty, the educated common sense of the world protests. Human liberty is a science, and one of the greatest thinkers of the age has devoted a volume to its exposition. The subject as related to

moral science and civil law, like all other important quest is worthy the profoundest thought, and is not susceptib hasty solution. As man advances in the scale of enlig ment, so do his ideas of personal liberty become more But "the right to think error" being denied him, the w of human progress must stop. Who that ever thought not thought error? Who does not know that from th ginning of his career man has been compelled to grope way through darkness, learning little by little the mysteri the universe around him, and of his own being and resp bilities; gathering in his "pan" a thousand grains of sands of error to one nugget of truth, and now compelle sift and wash! Yet, says the Father, God gives us not liberty to think error!

CHAPTER XI.

REPLY TO CHAPTER X.

Father Lambert's Dignified Headings-Human Ignorance and Divine PitySinful Ignorance-Wars of Persecution—Exterminating the Heathen—The Father's Advice to "Brain" the Infants of Savages.

THE first thing that engages attention in our review of Chapter X. is its chaste and dignified headings: "Some gush;" "Methods of warfare;" "Cheek," etc. When vulgarity of expression is indulged, it is more respectful to readers to refer than quote.

In the following words Mr. Ingersoll raises the point that an infinitely merciful God must pity the misfortunes of his children and forgive an ignorance which is "invincible: "

Ingersoll." I insist that if there is an infinitely good and wise God, he beholds with pity the misfortunes of his children."

Lambert." I insist on the same; but we must distinguish between misfortune and crime, misfortune and wickedness."

Ingersoll." I insist that such a God would know the mists, the clouds, the darkness, enveloping the human mind." Lambert." He does know, and takes into account these disadvantages in dealing with his creatures."

In regard to the distinction between the misfortune and the sinfulness of ignorance-and there is such a distinction-will the Father point it out clearly and definitely, so that we may know its ear-marks for all time? If he will, he will confer a