EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



One is no less than astounded to discover the 

 rude and thoughtless idea of toleration generally 

 current. Keenly attempting to defend, the other 

 day, Buckle's dictum that religious persecution 

 is the greatest evil known to mankind, transcend- 

 ing war itself, one was met by the assertion that 

 the age of religious persecution was at least the 

 age of sincerity and enthusiasm, while toleration 

 implies lack of real faith in anything at all. " So, 

 then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold 

 nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." For 

 "lukewarm" some would substitute "tolerant" as 

 a synonym. Only recently, when I waxed wroth 

 over a false and spiteful assertion about a great 

 man, and rebutted it with some force, I was accused, 

 to my utter astonishment, of intolerance as if to 

 let a lie go unbranded were toleration. Now if this 

 were so if to be tolerant is to be a Laodicean 

 who will deny that toleration is an evil ? 



The saying about a God who "hates the sin but 

 loves the sinner" precisely expresses the essence 

 of toleration. There is nothing Laodicean about 

 the divine attitude thus conceived. The hate is 

 implacable, the love unquenchable. So with tol- 

 eration, as it is understood by those who have 

 thought about it. The tolerant man may be as 

 keen about what he conceives to be truth as the 

 Grand Inquisitor, and as hateful of error; but he 

 distinguishes between the sin and the sinner. He 

 may believe it to be his duty to speak in terse and 

 scornful language of the thought he holds to be 

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