" Mr. Volney arrays
in a sort of semicircle the different and conflicting religions of the
world. "And first," says he, "surrounded by a group in various fantastic
dresses, that confused mixture of violet, red, white, black, and
speckled garments, with heads shaved, with tonsures, or with short
hairs, with red hats, square bonnets, pointed mitres, or long beards, is
the standard of the Roman Pontiff. On his right you see the Greek
Pontiff, and on the left are the standards of two recent chiefs (Luther
and Calvin), who, shaking off a yoke that had become tyrannical, had
raised altar against altar in their reform, and wrested half of Europe
from the Pope. Behind these are the subaltern sects, subdivided from the
principal divisions. The Nestorians, Eutychians, Jacobites, Iconoclasts,
Anabaptists, Presbyterians, Wickliffites, Osiandrians, Manicheans,
Pietists, Adamites, the Contemplatives, the Quakers, the Weepers, and a
hundred others, all of distinct parties, persecuting when strong,
tolerant when weak, hating each other in the name of the God of peace,
forming such an exclusive heaven in a religion of universal charity,
damning each other to pains without end in a future state, and realizing
in this world the imaginary hell of the other."
Can it be doubted for an instant that sentiments like these are
derogatory to the Christian religion? And yet on grounds and reasons
_exactly these_, not _like_ these, but EXACTLY these, Mr. Girard founds
his excuse for excluding Christianity and its ministers from his school.
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