54 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



can America, looking with equal eye over the old continent, omit 

 to notice the rise of the Mahometan power in the seventh century, 

 nor fail to enquire what have been the relations of the Mahometan 

 creed to human liberty and progress during the 1,200 years that 

 have elapsed since the coffin of the arch-imposter was suspended 

 between earth and heaven. 



She will not forget that whatever be the social predicament of 

 ^he Mahometan millions of the old world, their notions of liberty 

 and progress have been enforced and perpetuated at the point of 

 the sword by one who assumed at once the regal and sacerdotal 

 office. Comparing results with the instrumentality employed, 

 America will experience no difficulty in determining whether 

 such combined agencies are ever likely to be exerted for the 

 advancement either of national greatness or of social progress. 



Nor, with equal fairness, will she fail to investigate the claims 

 of Christianity to an alliance with the spirit of liberty — to a rela- 

 tion more close and immediate than that of parent and child — 

 that is, when untrammelled by the degrading chain that in other 

 countries than this, links national creed in disreputable and detri- 

 niental connection with the civil government. 



We have seen how the institution of "caste " among the millions 

 of India stands in direct relation to the power of priestly pre- 

 scription, and how the present degradation of that fertile and 

 prosperous territory, first to the Mahometan then to the British 

 yoke, is the result. The degrading influence we deprecate spreads 

 itself through all gradations of society among every nation that 

 permits itself to forget its own privileges. In the House of Lords 

 Lord King enquired of Bishop Horsley what was the meaning of 

 " heterodoxy " and " orthodoxy." " My lord," replied the bishop, 

 " orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy is another man's doxyP So, 

 similarly, we have a very illustrative instance of the spirit that 

 animates not alone the priests of a state establishment, but all 

 ecclesiastical dynasties, in the very candid and unmistakable 

 answer which Lord Ellenborough (then Chancellor) gave to a 

 deputation of dissenters who sought some relaxation of the penal 

 law: " You kept us down in CromwelPs day when you had the 

 power; and now we have got you down^we intend to keep you thereP 



