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a general ] i jy VERY ONE was anxious to know the real 
anxiety as to 1 -i . . . „ r , 1 • 1 • 
this matter. 1 i opinions ot Mr. Mill on the primary subjects 
of Religious thought. 
At the time of the election for Westminster, some ten years 
since, the charge of Atheism was freely brought against Mr. 
Mill — some said unjustly — as constituting a serious disqualifica- 
tion for the task of legislator in a country still professedly Chris- 
tian. It was remembered that a judge in open court had refused 
evidence offered by a witness who avowed unbelief in God. 
Deism being thus regarded as the least amount of creed expected 
in a public man, Mr. Mill, when suspected and 
of Atheism questioned, refused to satisfy the inquirer on this 
candidate tor ]>oint, urging that no one had any right to demand a 
Westminster confession of the religious opinions of another. He 
said, too — and the evasive saying dazzled a few — that 
he thought it a duty to vindicate entire liberty of thought as 
belonging to men in Parliament as well as out of Parliament. 
They, then, who had looked for a warm and instant repu- 
diation of the “charge” against Mr. Mill were cer- 
to meeuu 8 tainly disappointed, and took refuge in admiring his 
courage. It was said, “ If he would admit nothing, 
he would deny nothing”: he simply, “on principle, would not 
be cross-examined.” It was found to be useless even for those 
who yet were importunately asked to elect him as their “ repre- 
sentative,” to urge that they had a right to know his principal 
opinions, and that that knowledge might touch the principal 
opinions of some, at least, of the electors ; and also that frank- 
ness between electors and elected was but fair. No; Mr. Mill 
maintained his position, and was supported in it by persons of 
eminence in Church and State, who preferred to allege that 
there was no arritre pensee, and at all events resolutely sub- 
scribed to promote his return to Parliament. 
2. There can be no doubt, too, that the desire to know 
Mr. Mill’s views was not mere curiosity. Many 
in T h!s in ^ews hoped for a grand thoughtful book. Then he was 
was enhanced regarded even by the popular mind as what, in the 
utiom repU language of the day, is called a “ thinker ” ; a logician, 
of even terrible exactness. (The vulgar, indeed, 
commonly suppose a logician to be pre-eminently a thinker, not 
knowing that his science, as such, is primarily engaged with the 
technicalities and modes, rather than with subjects, materials, or 
even grounds, of thought.) The announcement, then, that some 
“Essays on Religion” had been found among Mr. Mill’s 
papers after his death, was not unwelcome to tiie world. It was 
painful to observe, however, the tone which soon began to prevail 
