PREFACE. 



Ix reproducing this discourse, it is a 

 pleasing duty to me to express my thanks 

 to the kind and enlightened audience, 

 which, perceiving with much tact that it 

 involved a question of liberty, upheld me 

 during its delivery. To interrupt an in- 

 tellectual exercise at which one is not 

 compelled to be present, appears to me, 

 at all times, to be an illiberal action ; 

 it is to oppose oneself with violence to 

 the opinion of another ; to confound twu 

 things, totally distinct : the admitted right 

 of fault-finding, according to liking or con- 

 science ; and the pretended right of stifli 

 by one's own authority, notions which are 

 looked upon as objectionable. Who does 

 not see that this last pretension is the 

 source of all violence and all oppression ? 



