the highest human authority, and refusing obedience to them when it judges them to be wrong; whereas their principles vest the civil sovereign with an absolute supremacy which no one has a right to dispute, but must implicitly yield, even in actual obedience to all its commands. I shall not insist on the abject condition to which this reduces the whole of mankind except the few who have the supreme magistracy in their hands, because the men we have to do with in the present debate avow no feeling of it, having professedly abandoned all sense of honour, liberty, and virtue, unless so far as they are subservient to private interest. But with respect to the security of government itself, though we grant it is true that the principles of religion establish in every man a supremacy for himself, so that his conscience must be the last judge of his own actions, yet this supremacy does not make void the proper exercise of civil authority nor hinder its effects. For the right of conscience, importing not merely a liberty but an obligation to do what is right and fit, is the greatest security of just obedience to the power ordained of God, as well as of everything else morally good that the human nature is capable of. But the question is, What advantage will be gained to the civil power if conscience be displaced? Does the atheistical scheme substitute nothing in its room which may be equally dangerous? Yes, certainly, for it transfers the supremacy to arbitrary will, lust, and passion, all summed up in self-love, or the desire of private happiness, that is, pleasure, which of right is the absolute ruler in every human heart, and reason is intended not to control but to minister to it. Is this more friendly to civil sovereignty than conscience, which is founded on the notion of a real and essential difference in the nature of things, between just and unjust, moral good and evil, and therefore must tie up men's hands from public mischiefs, though they might gratify their own humours and inclinations? CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO PERSECUTION.1 Our blessed Saviour had it in view, by his gospel, to promote the common happiness of mankind upon the foundations of virtue and From a collection of Searce and Valuable Tracts, &c., published in 1751. charity, and to restore and preserve peace among them by uniting their affections, and delivering them from the dominion of those lusts which warred in their members, the causes of their wars and fightings, confusion and every evil work. But whereas concord was unhappily broken, and the world became a scene of disorder, not only the selfish passions of men set them at variance, but religion itself was so far perverted as to be the cause of hatred and animosity; in such a case it was impossible to reunite their alienated hearts and re-establish harmony otherwise than by changing their sentiments and giving them truer notions both of piety towards God and benevolence to men, showing them that the former is the sure foundation and the chief support of the other, and that the true perfection of our nature consists in an imitation of the divine moral attributes which will lead us to an inviolable regard to the felicity of mankind in general, and of every individual as far as it is in our power. This is of the very essence of the Christian scheme. And in order to carry it on the more effectually, the great Author supposes the state of things, when he published it, to be just as it was in fact: that men were enemies to one another, proud, wrathful, and contentious, many of them the most of all averse to those who distinguished themselves by the purity and simplicity of their worship and the innocence of their whole behaviour. I say, supposing this to be the case, our Saviour teaches those who would embrace his institution to accommodate their deportment to the condition in which they actually were, that is, being as sheep in the midst of wolves, fierce adversaries of their profession and their persons, who would persecute and despitefully use them; to exhibit to the world bright examples of the most exalted benevolence and charity, by rendering love for hatred, and the best offices in their power for cruel treatment. If, indeed, the Christian doctrines were universally and sincerely embraced, and the word of Christ had its proper influence on the minds of all men, there would be peace on earth and mutual good-will among men; fierceness and cruelty, with their horrid effects, misery and desolation, must cease; there could then be no such thing as forgiveness, and the exercise of meekness, strictly speaking, because there would be no hatred, persecution, and despiteful usage. But when it is otherwise, and we are in a mixed imperfect state, the best having their infirmities and a great many full of the leaven of malice and wickedness, the children of God must be blameless and harmless, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, shining as lights in the world. We cannot but be sensible that this is what our blessed Master indispensably requires as most conducive to his service and the honour of his religion, and absolutely necessary to our obtaining his approbation. That the obligation upon Christians is universal, extending to all men and all cases wherein they can be, is evident from the supposition of the text, which is that of the severest trials from men, even of enmity, cursing, persecution, and despiteful usage. If all this does not dissolve the bond of benevolence it is hard to tell what does, or to imagine anything which can set us more at distance, and provoke and even justify resentment instead of kindness. Enmity or hatred with their bitter fruits may be conceived as arising either from private passions and interfering interests, or from public differences, particularly in religion. It is certain these latter are often as fierce as any, and I think 'tis plain they are not excluded from the meaning of the text, that is, that the disciples of Christ should not only be ready to forgive private injuries, and to render good for them, but that they should have the same dispositions towards the adversaries of their religious profession. Nay, this indeed was the primary intention of the many charges of this sort which our Saviour gave to his first followers.. He does not suppose them only or principally to be involved in personal quarrels with their neighbours, but to be exposed to the rage and fury of men because of their religious sentiments and practices. Thus he warns the apostles that they should be called before kings and councils for his sake, that is, for their adherence to his doctrine and precepts, and that such differences should arise about Christianity that families would be divided in their affections, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters set against each other, and a man's foes be those of his own house. This was exemplified in the primitive Christians, cruelly persecuted for the sake of their religion. Their Master went before them in enduring all manner of reproaches and ill-usage for his good offices to mankind, in endeavouring their reformation; and in the last extremity of distress, when led as a lamb to the slaughter, he was dumb, not opening his mouth in threatenings or invectives, but prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” leaving us an example that we should follow his steps. After him, Stephen, with his last breath, returned prayers for curses, crying, just as he expired by the hands of barbarous men stoning him to death, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." So did all the apostles still maintain their innocence unblemished, and their charity inviolable, even to their most cruel persecutors. All this is not to be understood as if Christianity were intended to destroy the unalterable right of mankind to defend their lives and their liberties, among which that of conscience is the most sacred, against unjust violence, as if we were obliged by the rules of our religions to offer our throats to ruffians, and submit universally to the most lawless tyranny. But the religion of the Holy Jesus forbids revenge. Even when necessary, selfdefence is allowed, nay, is most just and honourable. Christians should be always ready to be reconciled, never carrying their resentment farther than self-preservation requires. When that end is obtained, and force is no more needed to repel causeless wrongs, then the offices of love take place; the utmost cruelties ought not to be retaliated. In the case of the apostles and other primitive Christians the right of self-defence was entirely out of the question. Their situation was such that it was not in their power to use it. And so God was pleased to order, in his infinite wisdom, that in them might be exemplified illustriously the virtues of meekness, patience, and charity, which are the glory of his gospel, for a pattern to all who should afterwards believe, and for a testimony to the world of the truth, the purity, and the innocence of the Christian faith. But at all times Christianity appears, as originally delivered by its blessed Author, to be an inoffensive institution, breathing nothing but peace, and tending to inspire its professors with the strongest sentiments of kindness and good-will to all men-kindness not to be extinguished even by hatred, injuries, and affronts, so far from giving any allowance to rage and cruelty in the defence and provocation of it; of which we have a remarkable instance in the severe reproof our Saviour gave to two of his disciples, who moved to have fire come down from heaven to destroy some of the Samaritans because they refused to receive him into their village. He turned and rebuked them and said, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." JONATHAN SWIFT. BORN 1667 DIED 1745. [In the spring of 1667 Jonathan Swift, full | doubt, he suffered many an indignity from the cousin to the poet Dryden, and steward to the poverty-stricken state in which he was mainSociety of King's Inns, Dublin, died in poor tained by an uncle who seemed, but in reality circumstances, leaving a widow. Seven months was not, rich. later, on the 30th of November, in a little house in Hoey's Court, the poor widow gave birth to a son, who was named Jonathan after his dead father, and whose life, begun thus miserably, was fated to be one constant round of warfare and suffering, of defeat in victory and of disappointment in success. Born with a spirit fitting him to rule, the greatest satirist of England felt in the very first years of his life the cold hand of poverty pressing him to the earth and branding him a slave. From his earliest days there seemed to be something in Swift's life different from other men. His father had been buried at the expense of the society he served; his mother and himself were kept in existence by the scanty, and we believe necessarily scanty, bounty of his uncle Godwin. Still, it seems he had a nurse, and this nurse, like other women, in after days became so attached to him, that when she was called away to England to the death-bed of a relative she carried him with her clandestinely. After she was found the mother refused to insist on taking the child from her, fearing, as it was delicate, that it might not be able to stand the fatigues of a voyage from Whitehaven to Ireland. So in Whitehaven Swift remained three or four years, and there learned to read the Bible with ease. When he was about five years of age his nurse carried him to Ireland again, where, alas! there was now no kind mother to receive him, she having gone to live with a rela tive at Leicester in England. However, the little waif was taken into the family of his uncle Godwin, by whom, at six years of age, he was sent to Kilkenny school, where he remained for about eight years, and where, says Sir Walter Scott, his name, cut in school-boy fashion upon his desk or form, is still shown to strangers. There he learned to celebrate his birthdays by reading from Job the fierce passage in which that patriarch curses the day in which it was said in his father's house "that a man-child was born," and there, no At the age of fourteen he was entered at the University of Dublin, being on the 24th of April, 1682, received a pensioner under the tuition of St. George Ashe. His cousin, Thomas Swift, was also admitted at the same time, and owing to this fact and to the mention of the names in the college record without any prænomen attached, great difficulty has arisen in tracing certain details of their lives. At the university Swift rebelled against having to study the learned sophistry of Smiglecius and his fellows. Instead he dived deeply into studies of a wide but desultory kind, and while so doing drew up, young as he was, a rough sketch of his Tale of a Tub. Not only did he rebel against Smiglecius and his crew, he rebelled also against the college discipline, and became reckless and violent in other respects. Like Johnson in a similar condition he "disregarded all power and all authority;" he was miserably poor, mad, and violent," and what "was bitterness, that they mistook for frolic." For this he suffered several and severe penalties, and in February, 1685–6, the heaviest punishment of all in having his degree conferred on him by special favour. However, he still remained in college, and still continued to be a rebel to its rules. On the 18th of March, 1687, he was publicly admonished for neglect of duties, and on the 20th of November, 1688, he and some others were convicted of insolent conduct to the junior dean, and he and another had their academical degree suspended, and were condemned to publicly crave pardon of the offended dignitary. 66 Whether or not Swift ever submitted to the latter degradation is unknown, but shortly afterwards he left the college "without," as Scott says, "a single friend to protect, receive, or maintain him,"-his uncle having died a year or two before. The war of the Revolution had just broken out in Ireland, so he turned his back upon that country, and, footsore and weary, presented himself at his mother's residence in Leicestershire. There it was impossible for him to remain, as his mother was herself only the recipient of the bounty of her friends, and an inmate of a house which was not her own. However, she advised him to apply to Sir William Temple, a retired statesman, into whose house he was received as amanuensis at a salary of £20 a year. Before being mined to enter holy orders. not absolutely wrong in his conduct, and Temple not only gave him the certificate, but pleaded his cause with Lord Capel, so that he was at once, after admission to deacon's orders in January, 1694–5, appointed to the prebend of Kilroot, near Carrickfergus, worth about £100 a year. At Moor Park, near Farnham, the residencesions that he had been perhaps over-hasty, if of Temple, Swift resided for a couple of years, in the earlier part of which he was treated with coldness and distrust, and as one who had far too confident a mien and too presuming a temper for one so poor. However, he gradually grew in favour as his worth and strength became apparent, and after he had made a short visit to Ireland for the good of his health, Temple took him into confidence so far as to have him present at private interviews with the king. About this time also he went to Oxford, where, on the 5th of July, 1692, he was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts. At Oxford Swift composed his first extant poetical work, a translation of the eighteenth ode of the second book of Horace, and shortly after he attempted a higher flight in the production of Pindaric odes. These he showed to Dryden, who at once answered decisively, "Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet." The remark was never forgiven or forgotten, for to the proud bitter soul of Swift it seemed another of the insults to which his youth had heen subjected. However, notwithstanding Dryden's opinion, Swift began to acquire a literary reputation, and to make friendships among such men as Congreve, to whom in November, 1693, he addressed a copy of verses. In these very verses, as Scott has well remarked, he shows that he felt confidence in his own powers, and was already gifted with that "hate for fools" which made him so feared, and for which the "fools" yet make his memory pay dearly. “My hate, whose lash just Heaven had long decreed, Shall on a day make sin and folly bleed." After Swift's return from Oxford, where he had been flatteringly received, Temple and he grew gradually colder to each other. Swift saw clearly that he was but very poorly rewarded by his patron, who kept him in his present state for selfish reasons he believed. Temple looked upon Swift's anxiety for advancement as ingratitude, and offered him a post in the Rolls Office in Ireland, which was, it is said, expected to be refused. Swift did refuse it, and the two parted in mutual bad temper. Swift made another foot journey to Leicester, stayed there for a short time with his mother, then went over to Ireland, deter Swift's stay at Kilroot was not for long. He soon became weary of its rude society and dulness. Sir William found that he had lost an indispensable companion, whose real value only began to be properly seen when he was no longer present. Swift soon became aware of Sir William's desire for his return, but for a while his pride caused him to hesitate how to act. At last this was decided almost by accident. One day he met a curate with whom he had formed an acquaintance, and who had proved to be, not only a good man and modest, but well-learned and the father of eight children, whom he supported on an income of £40 a year. Borrowing the clergyman's horse, Swift started off at once to Dublin, resigned his preferment, and obtained a grant of it for the poor curate, who was so affected with gratitude that the benefactor never forgot the pleasure of the good deed so long as he lived. On Swift's return to Moor Park, in 1695, he was treated "rather as a confidential friend than a dependent companion," and the two great men soon became really fast friends. Once more settling down to work Swift completed his Tale of a Tub, and also wrote The Battle of the Books, neither of which was in defence of Temple's side in an argument published till 1704. The latter was written. into which that statesman had got involved as to the relative values of ancient and modern learning. During this second residence at Moor Park Swift made the acquaintance of Esther Johnson, whom he has immortalized as Stella, an event the most unfortunate in his life, as giving a handle to his enemies to vilify his William. A petition also was presented to the king reminding him of his promise to Sir William to bestow a prebend of Canterbury or Westminster on Swift; but as the dead statesman's services could no longer be turned to account, his secretary's talents and claims ceased to have any force, and Swift never even had an answer to his request. After long waiting, which must have been bitter indeed to his haughty spirit, he accepted an offer of the Earl of Berkeley, one of the lordsjustices, and went with that nobleman to Ireland as chaplain and private secretary. Before long an intriguer of the name of Bushe was appointed to the place of private secretary, amends being promised to Swift in the shape of the first good church living that should become vacant. In this Swift was again disappointed and tricked. The rich deanery of Derry fell vacant, but Bushe, who seems rapidly to have gained influence over Berkeley, declared Swift should not have it without a bribe of £1000. Swift classing master and man together as partners in the vile transaction, burst into an impetuous cry-"God con- | found you both for a couple of scoundrels!”and on the instant departed from his lodgings in the castle. Berkeley, alarmed at the thought of Swift's satiric lash, hastened to patch up the breach, and the vicarages of Laracor and Rathbeggan and the rectory of Agher, all in the diocese of Meath, were conferred upon him. These were altogether worth about £270 a year, not half the value of the deanery withheld, but Swift accepted them. Berkeley and Swift never were real friends again, but Lady Berkeley and her two daughters still retained the esteem of the late secretary, and one of the daughters, Lady Elizabeth, remained to the end of his days one of his most valued correspondents. At Laracor he preached regularly on Sundays, and said prayers twice a week-on Wednesdays and Fridays-a thing not then much in vogue. The church, which was in a sad state of dilapidation, he repaired, as well as the vicarage, which had almost fallen into ruin through the avarice of former incumbents. "He increased the glebe from one acre to twenty." He also purchased the tithes of Effernock, and settled them by will upon the incumbent of that living. While these things were being done, Stella, and Mrs. Dingley her companion, took up their abode in the town of Trim, near at hand. Johnson, like nearly all Swift's biographers, calls her "the unfortunate Stella," but we cannot see how the appellation is justified. Her connection with Swift has made her name remembered, which it otherwise would never have been; while in the company, conversation, and confidence of such a master mind she had a full recompense for sacrifices treble those she seemed to make. Whether in the end Swift did or did not marry her is a matter of little moment, and a thing impossible to determine. It is sufficient for us to know that he and she were pure true friends to the last, and that, so far at anyrate as he was concerned, no trace of lower passion was allowed to enter into their intercourse. To avoid scandal he and she continued to live apart; she and Mrs. Dingley occupying the parsonage in his absence, but retiring from it on his return. They also took care never to meet except in the presence of a third party, a piece of precaution that evidently originated with Swift. In 1701 Swift's career began in earnest by the publication anonymously of his treatise on Dissensions in Athens and Rome, a work in which he showed how easy it is for liberty, by degenerating into license, to force itself to be extinguished by tyranny. The work made a great stir, and was attributed successively to Lord Somers and Bishop Burnet-Burnet, to escape an impeachment by the commons, being reduced to make a public disavowal of any share in the work, though in private he was no way offended at having it attributed to him. In 1702, on a visit to England, Swift publicly avowed the authorship. In 1704 appeared The Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books. The first of these at once placed Swift in the very foremost rank of living writers, and showed to the world and to the friends that flocked around him- Addison, Steele, and Arbuthnot, Somers and Halifax -that a new and tremendous literary force had arisen in their midst. In The Tale of a Tub Swift presents as an allegory three sons who mistook, altered, observed, and neglected the will of their father. In the records of their conduct he satirizes the corruptions and follies of the churches. At the same time in his digressions he points his sarcastic thrusts at the pedants, authors, and critics of his own and future times. It gave offence in many high quarters, however; notably to Queen Anne, who never forgave him for writing it, and who would never afterwards listen to his having the bishopric which he desired, earned, and deserved. Four years later, that is in 1708, appeared The Sentiments of a Church of England Man; Arguments against Abolishing |