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trary be proved; and the most religious witness may be scandalized by the imputation which the very question conveys."* Yet, with a spirit of pertinacious mendacity, our courts have been accused of judicial inquisition, and of extorting from witnesses their religious opinions, in order to render them odious.

What, says the author of the Demurrer, is a religious inquisition? Is it not an organized tribunal, vested with, or which usurps and exercises, the power, officially and authoritatively, to inquire into the religious opinions of mankind; to ascertain whether they are or are not according to law? Did not the court in the case under review, (Jackson vs. Giddings,) officially and authoritatively investigate the religious opinions of the witness in question, to find whether or not they were according to law? And was not the court thereby transformed into a religious inquisition ?†

This is a fair specimen of the candor, eloquence, and logic of Mr. Thomas Herttell.

The application of such remarks to the decision in NewYork, displays a disregard of truth and justice, which can hardly fail to excite indignation and astonishment. "Religion," says Chief Justice Spencer, in the very case alluded to," is a subject on which every man has a right to think according to the dictates of his understanding. It is a solemn concern between his conscience and his God, with which no human tribunal has a right to meddle."+ Away then with the imputation of religious inquisition and intolerance! Our courts are the firmest barriers of all proper freedom. Nor have they permitted any man to be exposed to the indignation, however righteous, of the community around him, by obliging him, unwillingly, to disclose his religious opinions. If he chooses voluntarily to publish his own infamy, and openly avows such principles as would undermine all confidence in testimony and sap the foundations of society; if he proclaims his disbelief in the existence of a God, and sneers at the idea of a future retribution; it can certainly add nothing to the odium which must ever rest on such a creed, to prove his renunciation of moral obligation, when his testimony is offered to affect the rights of his fellow men. It is true that the possessor of such a creed, if exposed, will be regarded with universal horror and indignation. And we rejoice that it is so. Woe to Our country, when the day shall arrive that the open contemner of religion can pass unscathed through the ordeal of public

*3 Blk. Comm. 369 note. 2 Brod. & Bing. 284. Lerg. & Lowb. 113.

† Demurrer, p. 25.

18 John. Rep. 106.

Queen's Case. €

See also 4th Day 51.

opinion! We rejoice to see the revilers of moral obligation sifted from the healthful body of the community in any way, and cast out, like tares, to be consumed. But let the clamor of such outcasts rest where it should: on religion, virtue, and integrity. These are their real antagonists: against these their malice is the most rancorous; and against these should their attacks be openly directed. While courts of justice are guided by the fear of God, and an adherence to the cardinal principles of truth, they will indeed be a terror to evil doers: but public opinion is the tribunal from whose scorching rebuke, the unprincipled and licentious shrink with the greatest dread.

In the administration of the laws of our country, we are not the champions of partiality to any religious sect or denomination. It is our glory and our happiness, that truth may here prevail, unshackled by the fears and penalties of persecution. We protest against the perversion of our remarks into the expression of any intolerance, towards any sects who abandon many doctrines, to which we hold fast with the firm confidence of religious hope. It is our aim ever to exhibit and inculcate, the spirit of genuine catholicism. The pulpit and the press, the public exposition and the private exhortation; the example of the pure in heart, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, these are the resources to which the hopes of every friend of the gospel should be directed. The weapons of our warfare are spiritual, not carnal. And we trust, that at the least approach of real persecution or religious intolerance, our voice will ever be among the first to raise the alarm. But in exposing the malignant attacks of infidelity upon our most sacred institutions, we shall be equally fearless and efficient. When courts are abused for the rejection of witnesses, whose consciences cannot be bound by the obligation of an oath; and when an attempt is made to distort this firm assertion of legal principles, into a conspiracy of all christians against civil freedom, we cannot, as Christian Spectators, look tamely on, and not raise our voice in defence of what we hold dear. Strange indeed! if the guardianship of our free institutions, and the protection of true morality, have fallen into the hands of men who have no fear of God before their eyes! Strange! if the descendants of the Pilgrims, are conspiring to subvert religious liberty, and are only held in check, by the followers of a Voltaire, a Hume, and a Thomas Paine ! Honest and candid men will regard such insinuations, with the indignation and contempt which they merit.

But we challenge the exposure of a single instance in which the rights of any religious denomination have been invaded.

No tribunal in this state has attempted, on any occasion, to draw forth the private opinions of any man. Equal and impartial justice has been administered to all; and the private sentiments of every citizen have been held equally sacred. But in the language of an eminent judge. "Courts of justice are bound to see that no man's rights are impaired, or taken away; but through the medium of testimony entitled to belief."* In the discharge of this sacred duty, they cannot legislate; they must expound and apply the law as it is. Were the rule in question, therefore, less reasonable than we have shown it to be, it would be grossly illiberal to impute its hardship to the judges by whom it is administered. The rules of evidence are among the elementary laws of the land; and are, of necessity, general in their operation. Every man in a court of justice has a right to be tried by those rules, strike where they may. Nor can courts deprive him of the exercise of this right, by the consideration that in so doing, they may affect the reputation of any third person who is offered as a witness. If either party can impeach the veracity or competency of an opposing witness, the court cannot, from any tenderness for the reputation or feelings of such witness, deny the party his advantage. The competency of a witness, it has been well remarked, is a matter of adversary right; and unless the legislature interfere, judges cannot suspend or annull that right, without an unconstitutional enlargement of their powers.

But we are willing to submit the decision of this question to the most latitudinarian believer in any form of christianity. Only let the terms of it be no longer misunderstood. It has never been determined, at home, or abroad, that Deists, or Unitarians, or Universalists, are not permitted to testify. Courts make no such sweeping denunciations; though much of the excitement which has been created on the subject, has sprung from some such perverted representation of their decisions. The narrowest limit of the rule, admits all who believe in the existence of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments. Surely no man would be disposed to hazard his life and most valuable rights and interests, in a court of justice, on testimony secured by a more feeble sanction.

The State of Connecticut is now called upon to decide in relation to this subject. A bill passed one branch of our legislature, at its late session, admitting every man to his oath, who believes in the existence of God and of a superintending Providence. If this bill is passed into a law, what will be the

* Spencer, Ch. Just. in Jaokson & Giddins ut sup.

value of an oath in Connecticut? All dread of punishment in a future state of being, is expressly set aside. The property and character and life of every man among us, may depend on the testimony of those who believe, that not only perjury, but every other crime, will be instantly rewarded with eternal happiness when we enter the future world! Can any one who believes this, have serious apprehensions of being punished by God, in this life, for an act of perjury? Do we, in fact, see those who have sworn falsely, bearing about with them like Cain the mark of divine vengeance? Certain vices, it is true, like drunkenness, impurity, etc., which affect the constitution of the body or mind, do," in the way of natural consequence," entail misery on those who commit them. But individual acts of wickedness however enormous, are rarely if ever followed, in this life,by any direct infliction of divine vengeance. This world is a scene of trial, not of retribution; and he who has cast off all fear of retribution in the world to come, can find nothing to bind his conscience in the solemnities of an oath. A belief in a superintending providence is too vague and indefinite a requisition to be of any value. It may mean any thing or nothing-a providence which will punish iniquity, or a providence which will treat the guilty and the innocent alike.

The bill thus setting aside all the substantial obligations of an oath, passed the House of Representatives. In the Senate it was amended by striking out the words "a superintending providence," thus requiring nothing of a witness but a belief in the being of a God! This God may be any thing to which the witness chooses to give the name-matter or spirit; present to our actions and preparing to reward the evil and the good, or retired in the depths of immensity, and totally regardless of human conduct. He may be the God of the German philosophists at the present day-the soul of the world, the principle of power which actuates all the universe and the witness may believe, as we have heard such men soberly maintain, that every being is a part of God; and that all our actions, including those which are ordinarily called crimes, are only various modifications of that one pervading energy. Such are the proposed improvements on the established law of this State respecting judicial oaths! The bill thus amended lies over to be acted upon by our legislature in May next. The question is then to be decided, whether all that constitutes the sacred obligation of an oath, shall be deliberately set aside by the people of this State. "Where," said the greatest and best of men, in his Farewell Address to the people of the United States, "where is the security for property.

for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in our courts of justice!" The question should be deeply pondered by every citizen of the State, when called upon to give his vote on a subject, which may involve the administration of justice for ages to come.

ART. IV.-REVIEW OF JAMES ON CHRISTIAN CHARITY.

Christian Charity explained, or the influence of Religion upon Temper stated; in an exposition of 1. Cor. xiii. By JOHN ANGELL JAMES; author of the Christian Father's Present etc. 12mo. pp. 283. J. Leavitt, New-York and Crocker & Brewster, Boston: 1829.

In the preface of the work here announced, the author has the following sentiment: "Too much has not been said, and cannot be said, about the doctrines of the gospel; but too little has been said, and is said and thought, about the spirit of the gospel." In this sentiment we most fully concur. And we would take occasion, at the commencement of these remarks, to suggest particularly to those who are engaged in the investigation of moral and religious subjects,-whether, while they remit none of their ardor in their search after truth, and none of their intellectual effort for the amplest possible development and defence of it, they would not be rendering an important service to the cause of truth itself, by exercising a cautious and ceaseless regard to the practical influence of their investigations on the culture and improvement of the heart. This, if desirable at all, is more especially so, in reference to important theological discussions. When, for example, inquiry is made into the nature of our moral relations to God, or to one another; or, into the ground of moral obligation, and the foundation of human reward and punishment at the tribunal of perfect justice and rectitude to which we are all advancing, it is very evident, that our inquiries relate to matters of deep and overwhelming interest;-to matters which may stand in an intimate connection with the life or death of our souls. And yet, it is possible to discuss them, in a way of cold, unfeeling speculation, as mere questions of philosophy; or what is worse still, with a warmth of temper which is generated by the desire of establishing our views as true, and of securing to ourselves the palm of victory, against those who may happen to dissent from us. In any inquiry, even after so precious a thing as truth itself, it seems to us that a most wakeful regard is to be had, to the temper of heart, with which

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