408 FREEDOM OF SPEECH. 



pronounce, as if ex cathedra, on religious points the 

 most recondite and abstruse. This is probably peculiar 

 to certain classes of society only, though I considered it 

 strangely at variance with the silence and reserve 

 maintained upon so many of those ordinary topics 

 which form the common staple of conversation among 

 us. Perhaps the training, education, and habits of the 

 country are averse to general conversation ; they may 

 form men to dogmatise, rather than to converse ; and 

 when two men have dogmatically pronounced themselves 

 upon a subject, conversation upon it between them at 

 least is at an end. 



Mr Colman, in his book upon England, mentions 

 that when, on a visit to an English family, he was 

 asked to what sect of religionists he belonged, he 

 answered, &quot; I belong to none.&quot; He seemed to think 

 this reply worth of being put upon record, and a Bos- 

 tonian may not readily comprehend how such an answer 

 made in England may have been among the causes which 

 led as a friend of his expressed it to me to many 

 turning upon him the &quot; cold shoulder &quot; before he died 

 among us. Such an answer, with us, is considered equi 

 valent to professing no religion at all and however 

 desirous we might be to show kindness to such a man 

 as an American, or as a representative of New England 

 agriculture yet having acquitted ourselves of the claims 

 of this feeling, we would rather, as a religious people, avoid 

 any prolonged association with the individual. It may 

 be well for other Americans who come among us to bear 

 this in mind, lest they should mistakingly attribute to 

 dislike of their nation what in reality may arise from a 

 disapproval of the opinions or manners of the individual. 

 Where so much free thought and speech prevails upon 

 religious subjects as in New England generally, one 

 should not anticipate a large infusion of that Popish 

 spirit which yields up all private judgment, and gives 



