as himself; that they rejoice at what gives him joy; and complain at what causes him inconvenience; that they are equally liable to hunger, and thirst, and cold; in short, that they have everything in common with himself, except some not very tangible or obvious questions of speculative theology. Intercourse of this kind has a softening effect; people find that the impression which they had formed from the reports current among their own persuasion is more unfavourable than the reality, and thus their mutual distrust gradually wears off when it is discovered to be in a great measure unfounded *. If, indeed, an agitator or controversialist seizes hold of these persons, he may convert their intercourse into an opportunity for collision; but unless men's bad passions are purposely stimulated and turned into this current, it seems as if the healing influence of every-day intercourse predominated. The Crusades may appear to afford an obvious contradiction to these remarks, as being an instance of religious animosity diffusing itself over large masses of people. But it was a sense of religious duty, not of personal, individual hatred, which led the Christians * "It is impossible, I think (says Sir J. Mackintosh,) to look into the interior of any religious sect without thinking better of it. I ought, indeed, to confine myself to Christian Europe; but with that limitation it seems to me that the remark is true; whether I look at the Jansenists of Port Royal, or the Quakers in Clarkson, or the Methodists in these journals. All these sects which appear dangerous or ridiculous at a distance, assume a much more amiable character on nearer inspection. They all inculcate pure virtue and practise mutual kindness; and they exert great force of reason in rescuing their doctrines from the absurd or pernicious consequences which naturally flow from them. Much of this arises from the general nature of religious principle; much also from the genius of the gospel morality, so meek and affectionate, that it can soften barbarians, and warm even sophists themselves."-Life of Mackintosh, vol. ii., p. 54. 66 to the Holy Land; they were actuated by fanaticism, not by bigotry; by a wish to place Jerusalem under a Christian government, rather than by a thirst after Mahometan blood. The Christians," says Gibbon, "affirmed that their inalienable title to the promised land had been sealed by the blood of their Divine Saviour; it was their right and duty to rescue their inheritance from the unjust possessors, who profaned his sepulchre and oppressed the pilgrimage of his disciples." This feeling was not that of Charles IX., when he stood on the balcony of his palace, and glutted his eyes with the sight of the blood of his Protestant subjects. It is a feeling of general hostility, quite compatible with toleration, forbearance, or even kindness to individuals. Hence accounts have been preserved of attachments between Christian knights and native women, as in the romantic story of Thomas à Becket's father, who is said to have been followed to England by a Saracen woman, the daughter of a Mahometan chief, in whose household he had served as a slave. It is moreover to be remembered that the religious zeal which gave rise to the Crusades was by no means a spontaneous ebullition of popular feeling, but was most assiduously inculcated and fomented by persons in authority. The popes, looking forward to an extension of their spiritual empire, urged the temporal rulers to undertake expeditions to the Holy Land, and the latter led their subjects thither without consulting their wishes more than on other occasions. During the hottest periods of the Reformation, and the persecution which attended it, the severities inflicted on heretics were never the result of a popular movement. No one can say that the people of France, the Nether lands, or Germany, were implicated in the butcheries of the League and the St. Bartholomew, the atrocities committed under the Duke of Alva, or the horrors of the Thirty Years' War. The executions in Queen Mary's reign emanated from the government. The religious fervour in Scotland pervaded the entire population, and was eminently destructive; but the destruction was directed against the system, not against the individuals. The churches, abbeys, and convents were thrown down, on the avowed principle of destroying the nests in order to get rid of the rooks. Lord George Gordon's riots in 1780 approach the nearest to a popular movement of bigotry; but the feeling then was not so much against the religion as against the slavish political principles supposed to be combined with it. The Church and King riots at Birmingham, in which Priestley's house was burnt, were likewise rather of a political than a religious character. There are some cases in which religious bigotry (that is, the desire of promoting one's own religious views, and discouraging those of others by force and threats) has been a transient popular feeling. Such appears to have been the deadly conflict between the inhabitants of two Egyptian towns on account of their worshipping different gods, described by Juvenal†: such were the excesses of the Taborites and the Anabaptists in Ger * Capefigue's recent attempt to show that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was the crisis of two popular parties has been completely refuted by Ranke, Historische Zeitschrift, vol. ii., p. 603. "Inter finitimos vetus atque antiqua simultas, Immortale odium et nunquam sanabile vulnus, many and such the attacks on the Jews made by the populace in many places during the middle ages. But these outbursts of active bigotry have been short and partial; nor can they be considered as at all invalidating the general truth of the remark, that persons of different religious persuasions are inclined to dwell together in peace and amity, if they are not stirred up to dissension by their rulers. This tendency to sink the points of theological difference increases in proportion as opportunities for intercourse are afforded. I have always perceived (says Mr. O'Connell in his evidence in 1825) that when Catholics and Protestants of a liberal class come to know each other personally, the animosity diminishes even by personal knowledge *.' 66 How often (says the Rev. Mr. Stanley in a recentlypublished pamphlet) do we hear it positively asserted in England, that, by the entire Catholic population, Protestants are held in abhorrence, and their very lives in jeopardy. I doubted the fact before, but am certain now that nothing can be more false. On the contrary, if left to their own unsophisticated, warm-hearted feelings (for I am ready to allow that an ill-disposed, narrow-minded priest may infuse the worst spirit), they are inclined to live upon the best terms with their Protestant neighbours. I omitted no opportunity of probing them, with a view to get at the truth; and in no one instance amongst the peasantry (and from them my information on this particular point was most likely to be correct), did I detect an atom of antipathy or repugnance t." There seems, therefore, to be little ground for believing that the effects of religious animosity, as stimu *H. C., 1825, p. 127. ✦ On Religion and Education in Ireland, p. 10. See also above, p. 124. lating individuals against individuals, are much to be dreaded, if the state does not interfere to exasperate the passions of its subjects, to widen the existing breaches, and to perpetuate by legal distinctions those differences which might otherwise be forgotten or overlooked. And, to return to the point whence we set out, it is clear, that to whatever extent bigotry is produced or increased by the interference of the government in religious matters, in whatever degree quarrels, attacks on persons and property, factions, tumults and disturbances may spring from the same cause, in the same degree the marriage of the church and state is hurtful to the state. It might, however, be expected, that the union of the church and state would at least be beneficial to the particular religious persuasion which is made the subject of favour and protection; nor indeed is this union so generally injurious to the favoured church, as to the favouring state. But it will be found, in fact, that the state, in conferring the boon, for the most part exacts in return such concessions as more than nullify the advantages springing from its bounty; and that the two parties to the contract are like two countries trading in goods protected by discriminating duties, each of which loses by purchasing inferior articles at a high price, when, if the law permitted, it could purchase elsewhere better articles at a lower price. The price paid for the protection of a church by the state, is in most cases its independence; a religious community within a civil community making laws for itself is naturally viewed with suspicion by the civil governor; and the state, therefore, exerts its influence to silence the purely ecclesiastical organs, and to merge the spi |