led Voltaire to consecrate to noble causes a pen so often sold to evil.
Still it is impossible not to suspect that if that apostle of toleration
had had a principality under his own sway, the fact of thinking
differently from the master would very soon have figured among the
number of delinquencies.

The patriarch of Ferney wrote in favor of toleration; some friends of
religious indifference have pleaded the cause of liberty of conscience:
the fact is certain. But other writers, animated by a living faith, have
also demanded liberty for all: the fact is not less certain. Some years
ago, at nearly the same epoch, the Père Lacordaire and our own
Alexander Vinet consecrated to this noble cause, the former the
attractive brilliancy of his eloquence, the latter all the fineness of
his delicate analyses. The friends of Lacordaire are gathering up the
vibrations of that striking utterance which proclaimed: "Liberty slays
not God."[33] Let us gather up also the good words, which, uttered on
the borders of our lake, have gained entrance far and near into many
hearts. I should like to take such and such a Parisian journalist, bring
him into our midst, and get him to acquaint himself thoroughly with the
results of our experience; I should like to conduct him to the cemetery
of Clarens, place him by the tomb of Vinet, and tell him what that man
was.--If, as he returned to his home, my journalist did not leave behind
him at the French frontier, as contraband merchandise, all that he would
have seen and learnt in our country, he would perhaps understand that
the surest road by which to arrive at respect for the consciences of
others is not indifference, but firmness of faith, in humility of heart,
and largeness of thought. All the writers who have devoted their pen to
the defence of the rights of the human soul have not therefore been
sceptics. Without continuing this discussion of proper names, let us
settle what is here the true place of writers. Before there are men who