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APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 495 
would be saved must have good friends or violent enemies; 
aml"thlit "he is^besToff^vvlio possesses both." This "best" 
condition, I have reason to believe, is mine. 
'Reflecting on the fraction I have read of recent remon- 
strances, appeals, menaces, and judgments covering not 
only the world that now is, but that which is to come I - V-i 
have noticed with mournful interest how trivially men 
seom to be inihienced by what they call their_religion, and 
h o j w il| -pot c n 1 1 y by that " nature which it is the alleged 
province of religion to eradicate or subdue. From fair and 
manly argument, from the tenderest and holiest sympathy 
on the part of those who desire my eternal good, I pass by 
many gradations, through deliberate unfairness, to a spirit 
of bitterness, which desires with a fervor inexpressible in 
words my eternal ill. K"ow T were religion the potent 
factor, we might expect a homogeneous utterance from 
thosa.-pxofessing a common creed, while, if human nature 
be the really potent factor, we may expect utterances as 
heterogeneous as the characters of men. As a matter of 
fact we have the latter; suggesting to rny mind that the 
common religion, professed and defended by these dif- 
ferent people, is merely ^the accidental conduit through 
which they pour their own tempers, lofty or low, courteous 
or vulgar, mild or ferocious, as the case may be. Pure abuse, 
good end, I have, wherever possible, 
deliberately avoided reading, wishing, indeed, to keep 
not only hatred, malice, and uncharitableness, but even 
every trace of irritation, far away from my side of a dis- 
cussion which demands not only good-temper, but large- 
ness, clearness, and many-sidedness of mind, if it is to 
guide us to even provisional solutions. 
It has been stated, with many variations of note and 
comment, that in the address as subsequently published by 
Messrs. Longmans I have retracted opinions uttered at 
Belfast. A Roman Catholic writer is specially strong 
upon this point. Startled by the deep chorus of dissent 
which my "dazzling fallacies" have evoked, I am now 
trying to retreat. This he will by no means tolerate. "It ^ > 
is too late now to seek to hide from the eyes of mankind -"! 
one foul blot, one ghastly deformity. Professor Tyndall ., 
has himself told us how and where this address of his was "; 
composed. It was written among the glaciers and the 
solitudes of the Swiss mountains. It was no hasty, hurried, 
Lj^**f. 
