You say Bonaparte is not in earnest upon the subject of religion,
and that this is the cause of his tolerant spirit; but is it
possible you can intend to give us such dreadful and unamiable
notions of religion. Are we to understand that the moment a man is
sincere he is narrow-minded; that persecution is the child of
belief; and that a desire to leave all men in the quiet and
unpunished exercise of their own creed can only exist in the mind of
an infidel? Thank God! I know many men whose principles are as firm
as they are expanded, who cling tenaciously to their own
modification of the Christian faith, without the slightest
disposition to force that modification upon other people. If
Bonaparte is liberal in subjects of religion because he has no
religion, is this a reason why we should be illiberal because we are
Christians? If he owes this excellent quality to a vice, is that
any reason why we may not owe it to a virtue? Toleration is a great
good, and a good to be imitated, let it come from whom it will. If
a sceptic is tolerant, it only shows that he is not foolish in
practice as well as erroneous in theory. If a religious man is
tolerant, it evinces that he is religious from thought and inquiry,
because he exhibits in his conduct one of the most beautiful and
important consequences of a religious mind--an inviolable charity to
all the honest varieties of human opinion.

Lord Sidmouth, and all the anti-Catholic people, little foresee that
they will hereafter be the sport of the antiquary; that their
prophecies of ruin and destruction from Catholic emancipation will
be clapped into the notes of some quaint history, and be matter of
pleasantry even to the sedulous housewife and the rural dean. There
is always a copious supply of Lord Sidmouths in the world; nor is
there one single source of human happiness against which they have