15G ON NOVEL OPINIONS the quarter which is beginning to open its eyes. At another period when the church is beginning to be triumphant, he sends out his favourite engine persecution, with his faggot and his axe, burning where he could not refute, and subduing by force what hey could not silence by argument. He is nowpursuing a different course. The same inalignant spirit which once laboured to drive men from Christianity by martyrdom, now draws them from it by sophistry. He now deteriorates truth instead of persecuting it; and as the process is less revolting, it succeeds bet- ter. Men ar.e no longer terrified into error, but coaxed into it. They are not frightened, but wheedled out of their belief. Their understandings become so bewildered, that they are persuaded that every new advance in heresy is a fresh step towards truth. Advantage is made even of their prejudices, which become more deeply rooted by the very 15*
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