The History Of The Last Trial By Jury For Atheism In England; a fragment of autobiography, submitted for the perusal of Her Majesty's Attorney General and the British clergy

Excerpt: ...of Berlin, to peruse the book and to return an answer. Neander did so, and declared in reply, that the work submitted to his examination threatened, it was true, the demolition of all creeds; nevertheless, he requested that full liberty should not be denied to his adversary, in order that full and free discussion might be the only judges between truth and error. And when asked whether it should be prosecuted, said, 'No, I will answer it.' Mr. Justice Erskine. That work was temperately written. Mr. Holyoake. Neander did reply to it, and Strauss had the manliness to acknowledge that it had corrected many of his errors. Would that have been done had he been prosecuted? Dr. Strauss's work on the scriptures got him a professor's chair in Germany. In this country it would have made him amenable to the common law, and to one, two, or three years' imprisonment. Gentlemen, in the pertinacity of my open reply to Maitland, you may find something objectionable, but I happen to be an admirer of that sentiment expressed by the honest 'Vicar of Wakefield'-'In all human institutions a smaller evil is allowed to procure a greater good; as in politics, a province may be given away, to secure a kingdom; in medicine, a limb may be lopt off, to preserve the body. But in religion, the law is written and inflexible, never to do evil.' Then, gentlemen, I ought to be tolerated in the truthfulness of my answer. Milton, in his Prose Works, in reference to an incident in his travels, says:- Milton's Prose Works, pp. 933-4, 8vo edit. Edited by Fletcher. 'While I was on my way back to Rome, some merchants informed me that the English Jesuits had formed a plot against me, if I returned to Rome, because I had spoken too freely of religion; for it was a rule which I laid down to myself in those places, never to be the first to begin any conversation on religion-but, if any questions were put to me concerning my faith, to declare it without any reserve or fear.'...