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of such corrupt practices, it may be presented at any time within twenty-eight days after the date of the alleged payment or promise, whether or not any other petition against that person has been previously presented or tried." Now that would appear at once to be an imperative provision of the Act, and there follow in the 89th section other similar provisions. Not only does the Act say the petition shall be presented within twentyone days, but also (sect. 89, sub-sect. 1), "at the time of presenting an election petition, or within three days afterwards, the petitioner shall give security for all costs, charges, and expenses which may become payable by him to any witness summoned on his behalf, or to any respondent." Here, then, is a provision to be fulfilled within three days of the twenty-one days. Then in the 3rd sub-section we have: "Within five days after the presentation of the petition, the petitioner shall in the prescribed manner serve on the respondent a notice of the presentation of the petition, and of the nature of the proposed security, and a copy of the petition; " and in the 4th sub-section: "Within five days after the service of the notice the respondent may object in writing to any recognisance on the ground that any surety is insufficient or is dead, or cannot be found or ascertained for want of a sufficient description in the recognisance, or that a person named in the recognisance has not duly acknow. ledged the same; "" and in the 5th sub-section: "If the objection is allowed, the petitioner may, within a further prescribed time not exceeding five days, remove it by a deposit in the prescribed manner of such sum of money as will, in the opinion of the court or officer having cognisance of the matter, make the security sufficient." So that those three sub-sections provide for three periods of five days each within which the question of security for costs is to be settled. Then comes the 90th section, which says that "On the expiration of the time limited for making objections," or, after objection made, on the objection being disallowed or removed, whichever last happens, the petition shall be at issue;" and then follow provisiors as to what is to be done when the petition is at issue, viz., that the prescribed officer shall make a list of all election petitions at issue, and other provisions. Now, all these provisions I have alluded to fix a time prescribed by a certain number of days, all these times being based on the twenty-one days within which the petition must be presented. These it appears to me are material provisions of the Act, and when the words "subject to this Act" are used we cannot disregard them. Otherwise, if we were to disregard them and allow this amendment, all these provisions would be dislocated, for in order to comply with the Act we should have to give further time to the sitting member to object to the petitioner's security for the further costs which might become payable by him in consequence of the amendment, and the result would be that the same petition would be at issue at two different times, first, as to the original allegations, and afterwards at a different time as to the further allegations allowed by the amendment. There is no provision made in the Act for such a state of affairs, and, practically, such a course would extend all these provisions, for which a limit of time is prescribed, to an unnamed time. To my mind this is a formidable and fatal objection to the allowance of

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this amendment. It is said that such amendments are made in statements of claim. That may be so, and as far as any amendment, such as is usually made in a statement of claim, can consistently with the provisions of this Act be made in a municipal election petition, I have no doubt that the court has jurisdiction to allow such an amendment. I give no opinion as to whether an allegation can be withdrawn. That, it must be remembered, would not conflict with any section, but I do not think it is at all material to the present question, because in any case, if notice is given to the other side that it is not intended to proceed with the petition, the judge would certainly take that into consideration on the question of costs. I do not, however, think the point material, and I therefore give no opinion. My judgment is based on the fact that a new charge is added by this amendment, and thereby the petition is made a new petition, the charge being one which goes beyond that preferred by the original petition. It is also based on the ground that the words "subject to this Act involve the necessity of looking through the Act before making an amendment to see whether there is anything in the Act with which the amendment would be inconsistent. These words "subject to the Act" have received judicial construction in other cases. I may cite the case of Parsons. Tinling (35 L. T. Rep. N. S. 851; 2 C. P. Div. 119), in which it was held that the words "subject to the provisions of this Act" at the beginning of Order LV. repealed the previous statutes as to costs, except such as were expressly preserved by sect. 67 of the Judicature Act 1873; and again in the case of Wells v. Wren (5 C. P. Div. 546) the same words occurring in the 2nd section of the Parliamentary Elections Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 125) were duly given effect to. Now, on the point before us there are two cases, the first being that of Pickering v. Startin (28 L. T. Rep. N. S. 111), where the decision was adverse to that to which I have come; but, as the learned counsel for the plaintiff contended in argument, the question raised in this case was not considered by the court there. In the second case, however, that of Maude v. Lowley (29 L. T. Rep. N. S. 924; L. Rep. 9 C. P. 165), the point was considered and decided by Lord Coleridge, C.J. and three other judges, who came to the same decision I am now pronouncing. The importance of that case is, that the point was adverted to and formed a ground of the decision, but objection is taken to it on the ground that it does not appear that the earlier case of Pickering v. Startin was ever brought before the court. Still the section in question was discussed, and even if my opinion of the point differed from that of the court which decided Maude v. Lowley, I should, in spite of Pickering v. Startin, consider myself bound by that case. As to the point itself, the inconvenience of disallowing this amendment was strongly pressed upon us in argument, but, although there can be no doubt that sometimes the argument ab inconveniente may be of use where the words of a statute are capable of two constructions, it is not so where the words are plain. It was said that a petitioner may not be informed immediately of diver acts of corruption committed by the other side; but, on the other hand, an elected member of a constituency must not always be kept in suspense, and it is reasorable that the time for

preferring charges against him should be limited. The arguments, therefore, derived from the convenience and inconvenience of the respective courses may be set off the one against the other, and that being so, to my mind the meaning of the statute is reasonably clear, and I think that it was the intention of the Legislature to fix a rigid limit of twenty-one days for the presentation of petitions, and that therefore this appeal must be allowed.

LOPES, J.-This is a petition against an order of mine made at chambers allowing a municipal election petition to be amended by adding the words "and treating" to the original ground of the petition. Since making that order, in the course of the argument in this case, the case of Maude v. Lowley (29 L. T. Rep. N. S. 924; L. Rep. 9 C. P. 165) has been brought to my attention. The head-note in that case is to the effect that a petition against the election of a town councillor cannot, after the expiration of the twenty-one days limited by sect. 13, sub-sect. 2, for its presentation, be amended by the introduction of a substantially new charge. Now that is the present case; in fact, it is remarkable how near the case altogether comes to the present, and Honyman, J., in his judgment in that case, says: "I am of the same opinion. There is nothing in the Act or in the rules framed in pursuance of it to warrant this amendment. The 7th section requires the petition to be presented within twenty-one days after the election. Here a petition was presented in time, charging the employment as paid canvassers of persons on the register of burgesses for the north ward of the borough. After the expiration of the twenty-one days, the petitioners seek to add a new charge, viz., the employment as paid canvassers of persons who are on the register of burgesses for other wards in the borough. I think that cannot be allowed. Suppose a petition to allege bribery only, could the petitioners be allowed afterwards to add a charge of treating ?" These words must have a very strong bearing on the present case, since it appears that the very point now raised before us was raised in that case. But it is said that the case of Pickering v. Startin (28 L. T. Rep. N. S. 111) was not cited in that case or the decision would have been different. Whether it was or was not cited, I do not know; it is true that no mention of it appears upon the face of the reports of Maude v. Lowley, but it is quite clear upon them that Keating, J., who was one of the judges who decided Pickering v. Startin, was also a member of the court in Maude v. Lowley, and entirely concurred with the decision there arrived at. This seems to me to dispose entirely of the objection founded upon Pickering v. Startin. When I gave my decision at chambers I remember that I relied chiefly on the case of Aldridge v. Hirst (L. T. Rep. N. S. 156; L. Rep. 1 C. P. Div. 410), the head-note to which case runs: This court will not amend an election petition by striking out, after the lapse of the time limited by the Act for presenting it, that part of the prayer of the petiticn which claims the seat for the petitioner (an unsuccessful candidate), and the allegations apply ingtoa scrutiny which would be dependent thereon, inasmuch as this would affect the rights of the constituency. Practice of election committees in this respect followed. Semble, that it is competent to this court to amend an election petition at any

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time by striking out allegations therein, where it is satisfied that no injurious result, or a beneficial one, will follow; or by adding matters discovered after the filing of the petition." It was on the authority of that head-note that I allowed this amendment, but it will be seen on reference to the judgments that that proposition is not supported by them. All that Grove, J. says is: "We by no means decide that this court has no power to make amendments in petitions, provided it sees that no injurious or unjust result, or that a beneficial result, will follow. In Pickering v. Startin the Court of Common Pleas allowed, in the case of a municipal election petition, an amendment by adding two paragraphs relating to matters discovered after the filing of the petition. On the other hand, in Maude v. Lowley, an application for an amendment by addition of allegations as to acts committed in other words besides those named in the original petition was refused by this court." These words it seems to me are quite negative, and do not even amount to a dictum in favour of the petitioner here. I think, therefore, that this appeal should be allowed.

MATHEW, J.-I am of the same opinion.

GROVE, J.-With reference to Aldridge v. Hirst (ubi sup.) I may say that I think it is clear from the words themselves that I had not at that time in my mind the case of an amendment adding a new ground of petition.

Appeal allowed.

Solicitors for the petitioners, Schultz and Son, for A. J. Ellis, Maidstone.

Solicitors for the respondent, Routh, Stacey, and Castle, for F. 8. Stenning, Maidstone.

Tuesday, April 24, 1883.

(Sittings at Nisi Prius, before the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND and a Special Jury.) REG. v. RAMSAY AND FOOTE. Newspaper-Blasphemous libel-What constitutes -Criminal intention in the proprietor. The defendants were indicted for blasphemous libel in the publication of certain cartoons, &c., in a newspaper called the Freethinker.

The jury were directed that a blasphemous libel did not consist in an honest denial of the truths of the Christian religion, but in "a wilful intention to pervert, insult, and mislead others by means of licentious and contumelious abuse applied to sacred subjects;" and further, that an authority to publish libellous matter was not a presumption of law, but a question of fact.

THIS was an indictment against Foote, the reputed editor, and Ramsay, the reputed publisher, of a newspaper styled the Freethinker, for the publication of certain blasphemous libels therein. Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., had also been indicted together with the above-named defendants upon the same charge, but at his request and that of Ramsay the case had been removed to the Queen's Bench Division for trial, and Mr. Bradlaugh had been tried separately and acquitted on the ground that there was no sufficient evidence to connect him with the publication of the paper.

Both the defendants had been formerly tried and convicted before North, J. for blasphemous libels contained in the last Christmas number of the same paper. The present trial was concerned

The defendants severally conducted their own defence in person, Avory for Ramsay and Cluer for Foote being present to advise and argue on points of law.

Before the jury were sworn, Avory raised certain technical objections to the indictment, and called attention to the fact that, although he was unable to say that his client had been autrefois acquit, yet he had been previously convicted, and was now undergoing sentence for a similar offence committed subsequently to that specified by the indictment; but

Lord COLERIDGE, C.J. said, that he had already decided the technical points, and was of opinion that the trial had better proceed.

Moloney for the prosecution. The publications apon which the indictment is based extend from March to June of last year. After these proceedings commenced the defendants were prosecuted for a subsequent issue of the Freethinker at the Central Criminal Court. He cited Starkie's definition of blasphemous libel (vide infra), and went into the details of the publications upon which the indictment was based, adding that if a verdict of "guilty was returned by the jury, it might be proper for his Lordship then to take the previous sentence into consideration. It was proved that the Director of Public Prosecutions had given his fiat for the prosecution, that on the 26th Nov. 1881, and the 2nd Aug. 1882, Ramsay's name had been entered in the registry of newspapers as proprietor of the Freethinker, and that in Feb. 1883 Foote's name had been so entered; but his Lordship held that this last entry, as being subsequent to the indictment, was not material evidence to connect Foote with the publication of the paper. It was not substantially disputed that Foote was the editor and Ramsay the publisher of the Freethinker, but in the course of the evidence his Lordship held that it was not admissible to ask a printer who the editor of a paper was, as the question was complex, and it was possible for a man to know for purposes of society that which he did not know sufficiently for purposes of evidence. He also held that the evidence must be limited to the publication of the particular numbers of the paper which were incriminated, and that it was not permissible to ask a witness what he supposed to be the meaning of certain cartoons, that being a subject upon which the jury must exercise their own judgment.

Ramsay, in defence, cited various works by Professor Huxley, Shelley and others; and complained of the uncertainty of the definition of blasphemy.

Foote, in defence, followed the same argument as Ramsay. He also said that blasphemy was only a new name for heresy, which used to be tried in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and consisted in fact of heresy against the State religion. He also quoted the criticisms made in Stephen's Digest of the Criminal Law upon the definitions of blasphemy.

Lord COLERIDGE, C.J.-The two defendants are indicted for the publication of blasphemous libels; and the two questions which arise for your con

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sideration are: First, are these publications in themselves blasphemous libels? Secondly, if they are so, is the publication of them traced home to the defendants so that you can find them guilty? I will begin with the last question, though it is reversing the logical order, because it is the Both shorter and more simple of the two. questions are entirely for you. When you have heard what I have to say to you as to the state of the law, as I understand it, it will then be for you to pronounce a general verdict of guilty or not guilty. Now, for the purpose of this question, which I deal with first, I will assume for the moment that these are blasphemous libels, but though I assume it now I will discuss it with you afterwards. Assuming them, then, to be blasphemous libels, is the publication of them traced home to the defendants? As you are not the same jury who tried Mr. Bradlaugh, it is necessary for me to repeat to you the direction on this subject which I gave a few days ago to the jury which tried him. As to the matter of publication, the law has been altered in most important respects by a statute passed early in the reign of the present Queen (6 & 7 Vict. c. 96). It used to be the law that the proprietor of a newspaper was criminally, not merely civilly, but criminally responsible for a libel inserted in his paper, and that a bookseller or publisher was criminally responsible for a libel in any book which was sold or published under his authority, even though the newspaper proprietor, or the bookseller or publisher, did not know of or authorise the insertion of any libel, and did not even know of its existence. But this in the criminal law was an anomaly and a grievance, which the statute I have referred to was, in its seventh section, intended to remedy. That section came to be considered in the case of Reg. v. Holbrook, in which a gross libel on the town clerk of Portsmouth had been published in a Portsmouth newspaper. The case was twice tried at Winchester, first before Lindley, L.J., and secondly before Grove, J. On each occasion the ruling of the judge who tried the case was questioned in the Queen's Bench in the time of my predecessor in this seat; on each occasion by the same three judges, Cockburn, L.C.J. and Mellor and Lush, JJ.; on each occasion there was the same difference of opinion, the Lord Chief Justice and Lush, J. holding one way and Mellor, J. the other. But, notwithstanding this difference of opinion, the case is a binding authority upon me, and I lay down the law to you in the terse and clear language of Lush, J.: "The effect of the statute," says he (4 L. Rep. Q. B. 50), "read by the light of previous decisions, and read so as to make it remedial, must be, that an authority from the proprietor of a newspaper to the editor or publisher to publish what is libellous, is no longer to be, as it formerly was, a presumption of law, but a question of fact. Before the Act the only question of fact was, whether the defendant authorised the publication of the paper, now it is whether he authorised the publication of the libel.

Criminal intention is not to be presumed, but it is to be proved, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a person who employs another to do a lawful act, i.e., to publish, is to be taken to authorise him to do it in a lawful and not in an unlawful manner.” Such is now the law laid

down in admirable language by great authority; and it is for you to say whether, according to the law as laid down, these defendants (either or both of them) did or did not authorise the publication of these libels. On the trial of Mr. Bradlaugh this question of fact was the question in the case; he grounded his defence upon the contention, that whatever was the character of the published matter, the publication was not by his authority. That was his defence; and upon that defence, so far as I may presume to assign reasons for the general verdict of a jury, he was acquitted. In the trial before us the process has been reversed. The fact of publication by the defendants has hardly been contested. The evidence is all one way; it is uncontradicted, and it is overwhelming. It is proved that the defendant Ramsay sold the papers which contained the libels. It is proved that the articles charged as libellous were inserted by the express direction of the defendant Foote. There is nothing to qualify this proof; the defendants, in fact, do not deny their liability; and though the case is for you, I do not know that I need refrain from saying that, if upon the evidence you have heard, you think both the defendants liable for the publication of these alleged libels, I shall entirely agree with you. That, however, is, comparatively speaking, the least matter you have to decide; for the proof is clear, and it is not disputed. The great point still remains, are these articles within the meaning of the law blasphemous libels? Now that, as you have been truly told, is a matter absolutely for you. On you is the responsibility, after looking at them and reading them, of saying whether they are or are not blasphemous libels. My duty is to explain to you as clearly as I can what is the law upon the subject. My duty, further, is not to answer the speeches of the defendants, (that is no part of the duty of a judge), but to point out to you what in their arguments is in my judgment well-founded, and what is not; and then, when you have listened to me, the question is entirely for you. I am sure from my experience of juries that, in a criminal case especially, they will obey the law as declared by the judge; they will take the law from the judge, whether they like it or do not like it, and apply it honestly to the facts before them. Gentlemen, I have said before, and I take the freedom to repeat, that it is far more important the law should be administered with absolute integrity, than that in this case or in that the law should be a good law or a bad one. The moment juries or judges go beyond their functions, and take upon themselves to lay down the law or find the facts, not according to the law as it is, but according to the law as they think it ought to be, then the certainty of the law is at an end; there is nothing to rely upon; we are left to the infinite variety and uncertainty of human opinion; to caprice which may at any moment influence the best of us; to feelings and prejudices, perhaps excellent in themselves, but which may distort or disturb our judgment, and distract our minds from the single simple operation of ascertaining whether the facts proved bring the case within the law as we are bound to take it. Forgive me if I seem to press too earnestly upon a special jury of Middlesex these obvious commonplaces. If at my age, with so much to bring about a temper of indifference, with the training which a whole life spent in judicial pursuits ought to have brought

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with it; if I feel, as I confess I do, that it is hard in a case like this to be perfectly just and absolutely impartial, it may perhaps be that to some of you at least my earnest warning may not be absolutely useless; at any rate, I am sure you will pardon me for having presumed to utter it. Gentlemen, you have heard with truth that these things are, according to the old law, if the dicta of old judges, dicta often not necessary for the decisions, are to be taken as of absolute and unqualified authority-that these things, I say, are undoubtedly blasphemous libels, simply and without more, because they question the truth of Christianity. But I repeat what I said on the former trial that, for reasons which I will presently explain, these dicta cannot be taken to be a true statement of the law, as the law is now. It is no longer true, in the sense in which it was true when these dicta were uttered, that Christianity is part of the law of the land. In the times when these dicta were uttered, Jews, Roman Catholics, Nonconformists of all sorts were under heavy disabilities for religion, were regarded as hardly having civil rights. Every. thing almost, short of the punishment of death, was enacted against them. The epithet "ferocious," which has been applied to the statute of William III., to which so much reference has been made, is hardly stronger than that statute deserves. Jews, it is true, were excluded from Parliament in a sense by accident, for the oath which excluded them was not pointed at them; but no one can doubt that at that time if it had occurred to anyone that they were not excluded, a law would have been forthwith passed to exclude them. Historically, and as matter of fact, such was the state of things when these dicta were pronounced. But now, so far as I know the law, a Jew might be Lord Chancellor, most certainly he might be Master of the Rolls. The great and illustrious lawyer whose loss the whole profession is deploring, and in whom his friends know that they lost a warm friend and a loyal colleague; he but for the accident of taking his office before the Judicature Act came into operation, might have had to go circuit, might have sat in a criminal court to try such a case as this, might have been called upon, if the law really be that "Christianity is part of the law of the land” in the sense contended for, to lay it down as law to a jury, amongst whom might have been Jews, that it was an offence against the law, as blasphemy, to deny that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, a thing which he himself did deny, which Parliament had allowed him to deny, and which it is just as much part of the law that anyone may deny, as it is your right and mine, if we believe it, to assert. Therefore, to base the prosecution of a bare denial of the truth of Christianity, simpliciter and per se on the ground that Christianity is part of the law of the land, in the sense in which it was said to be so by Lord Hale, and Lord Raymond, and Lord Tenterden, is in my judgment a mistake. It is to forget that law grows; and that though the principles of law remain unchanged, yet (and it is one of the advantages of the common law) their application is to be changed with the changing circumstances of the times. Some persons may call this retrogression, I call it progression of human opinion. Therefore, to take up a book or a paper, to discover merely that in it the truth of Christianity is

denied without more, and thereupon to say that now a man may be indicted upon such denial as for a blasphemous libel, is, as I venture to think, absolutely untrue. I for one, positively refuse to lay that down as law, unless it is authoritatively so declared by some tribunal I am bound by. Historically, I cannot think I should be justified in so doing, for Parliament, which is supreme and binds us all, has eracted statutes which make that old view of the law no longer applicable. Nor is it any disrespect whatever to the great men of elder days to hold that what they said in one state of things is not applicable under another. Gentlemen, when I last addressed a jury on this subject, I put a case to them which I thought was a reductio ad absurdum of the argument. I said that, if the law was as contended for, it would be enough to say that anything was part of the law of the land, and that thereupon there could be no discussion and no reform; for that to attack any part of the law, however gravely and respectfully, would be, if not blasphemous yet seditious. Monarchy is part of the law of the land; primogeniture is part of the law of the land; the laws of marriage are part of the law of the land, and so forth. But if the doctrine contended for be true, to republish Algernon Sydney, or Harrington, or Locke, or Milton, would expose a man to a prosecution for a breach of the law of libel. But it shows how dangerous it is for some men at least to presume upon their knowledge. What I put as a reductio ad absurdum I have since discovered actually occurred, and was decided to be law by a judge early in the last century. There is a case reported by Lord Chief Baron Gilbert, R. v. Bedford, from which it appears that a man was actually convicted of a seditious libel for discussing gravely and civilly, and as the report of the case in Bacon's Abridgment, tit. "Libel," says, "without any reflection whatever upon any part of the then existing Government," the respective advantages of an hereditary or elective monarchy. I need hardly say that if such a case arose now no judge would follow that authority, no jury would convict, the whole proceeding would be denounced, and rightly denounced, as altogether monstrous. It is clear, therefore, to my mind that the mere denial of the truth of the Christian religion is not enough alone to constitute the offence of blasphemy. What then is enough? No doubt we must not be guilty of taking the law into our own hands, and converting it from what it really is to what we think it ought to be. I must lay down the law to you as I understand it, and as I read it in books of authority. Now, Mr. Foote, in his very able address to you, spoke with something like contempt of the person he called "the late Mr. Starkie.' He did not know Mr. Starkie; he did not know how able and how good a man he was. Mr. Starkie died when I was young; but I knew him, and everyone who knew him knew that he was a man not only of remarkable power of mind, but of opinions liberal in the best sense; and if ever the task of lawmaking could be safely left in the hands of any man perhaps it might have been in his. But, what is more material to the present purpose, the statement of the law by Mr. Starkie has again and again been assented to by judges as a correct statement of the existing law. I will read it to you, therefore, as expressing what I lay down to you as law in words far

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"There are no

better then any at my command. questions of more intense and awful interest than those which concern the relations between the Creator and the beings of His creation; and though, as a matter of discretion and prudence, it might be better to leave the discussion of such matters to those who, from their education and habits, are most likely to form correct conclusions, yet it cannot be doubted that any man has a right, not merely to judge for himself on such subjects, but also, legally speaking, to publish his opinions for the benefit of others. When learned and acute men enter upon these discussions with such laudable motives, their very controversies, even where one of the antagonists must necessarily be mistaken, so far from producing mischief, must in general tend to the advancement of truth, and the establishment of religion on the firmest and most stable foundations. The very absurdity and folly of an ignorant man, who professes to teach and enlighten the rest of mankind, are usually so gross as to render his errors harmless; but be this as it may, the law interferes not with his blunders so long as they are honest ones, justly considering that society is more than compensated for the partial and limited mischief which may arise from the mistaken endeavours of honest ignorance, by the splendid advantages which result to religion and to truth from the exertions of free and unfettered minds. It is the mischievous abuse of this state of intellectual liberty which calls for penal censure. The law visits not the honest errors, but the malice of mankind. A wilful intention to pervert, insult, and mislead others, by means of licentious and contumelious abuse applied to sacred subjects, or by wilful misrepresentations or artful sophistry, calculated to mislead the ignorant and unwary, is the criterion and test of guilt. "A malicious and mischievous intention, or what is equivalent to such an intention, in law, as well as morals-a state of apathy and indifference to the interests of society, is the broad boundary between right and wrong." Now that I believe to be a correct statement of the law. Whether it ought to be or not is not for me to say. I tell you the law as I understand it, leaving you to apply it to the facts of the particular case before you. There was much force, no doubt, in the way in which Mr. Foote dealt with the passage in his address to you. The vagueness, the uncertainty which he insisted upon are possibly, however, inherent in the subject, and there is perhaps more to be said in favour of Mr. Starkie's view than may appear without reflection. There is a passage in his book taken, I believe, from Michaelis, in which it is pointed out with great truth that in one view the law against blasphemous libel may be for the benefit of the libeller himself, who, if there were no law, might find its absence ill exchanged for the presence of popular vengeance and indignation. 'Now to the man who from his heart believes his religion, and regards it as the way to eternal bliss, and as the comfort both of life and death, and who of course wishes to educate his family in the knowledge and belief of it, nothing can be more offensive than to hear another speaking against it, and employing, not arguments (although even these he might let alone, because every man has a right even to err, without our forcibly interfering to rid him of his