It is of a character never to be lost sight of by those who perpetuate the memory of human events. The poet will embalm it in deathless song. The novelist will embody it in immortal Who is story. Will, do I say? He has already done so. there, henceforth, who can read again the Abbot of Walter Scott, without thinking that the same spirit of superstition and bigotry, which revelled and rioted in that scene of moral and religious darkness, has risen again from its sleep of ages, and having found no foothold among its ancient haunts, has crossed the wide-spread ocean to find, on the soil of free and enlightened Massachusetts, a stage for the reënactment of its terrible tragedies? And even on the page of history, sober and truth-telling history, softened and palliated as it may be by some fond and filial hand, it will still overtop the level of ordinary incident, and cast a deep shade over our brightest and proudest achievements.

In behalf, then, of this ancient Commonwealth, unused to any association but with the great and generous of the earth;in behalf of her living children, and in behalf of her dead fathers, whose names will be alike bound up with that of the State itself, for honor or dishonor, for glory or shame, in all future time; I invoke this House to do something to rescue her from this otherwise inevitable reproach.

THE TESTIMONY OF INFIDELS.

A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVFS OF MASSACHUSETTS, FEBRUARY 11, 1836.

ALLOW me, Mr. Speaker, before entering upon the discussion of the general merits of the bill under consideration, to set the House right with regard to the laws of Connecticut upon this subject. That State has long enjoyed a most enviable reputation for holding fast to that which is good. And it was not, I confess, without some alarm that I heard her example appealed to in favor of the bill. But upon subsequent investigation, I am entirely willing that her example should be followed. She has passed no such law. Her last statute upon the subject, the statute of 1830, has carried her not a jot beyond the point at which our common law now stands. It declares every man to be a competent witness who believes in a Supreme Being, and our courts have declared the same.

But I wish not to rest my opposition to this bill upon either example or authority; much less am I disposed to defend the present rule of law, merely because it happens to be an ancient rule. I agree with the gentleman from Gloucester, (Mr. Rantoul,) that principles are none the better for their antiquity. But let me remind him, too, that they are none the worse either. Let me remind him that there are at least two classes of minds in this House, with reference to this matter of antiquity. And that, while some may be disposed to adhere too blindly and cling too closely to whatever is old or established, adopting, as he says, the maxim of the poet" Whatever is, is right,".

there are others who leap a little too easily to the opposite of whatever is old and established, adopting, as their motto, the very reverse of that maxim “Whatever is, is wrong." Sir,

there are men here who seem to find their sole and sufficient reason for attacking any principle or any practice, in the mere fact that it did not originate in their day, or was not the offspring of their own brain;—who, while they profess great respect for the wisdom of their fathers, place no dependence upon any but their own; who seem to consider our Government, its institutions and its principles, free, prosperous, and pure though they be, as the subjects, not of the whole people's sober enjoyment, but of their own fanciful experiments; and who hunt out the imperfections which are inseparable from all human works, with the same eagerness and zeal with which sportsmen run down their game, not for any advantage to others, but only to enjoy their own agility and skill.

For one, Sir, I care not in what age, before the flood or since, any practice or any principle drew breath, or with what barbarous systems it was once intermingled; if it be good in itself, and works well in our own system, it is all that can be asked. Our own Massachusetts Bill of Rights contains more than one article from an instrument more than six hundred years old, and almost in the very words in which it was extorted from the lips of King John at Runnymede by his brave though barbarous barons. But do we rely on those articles any the less confidently on that account, or sleep any the less soundly under their protecting influence?

But there is one thing which antiquity affords, which even the gentleman himself must acknowledge to be valuable, experience experience a teacher compared with which the brainspun theories of men are but stumbling-blocks and foolishness; and let me say that neither industry nor ingenuity have been able to torture from her any response in favor of this bill.

And now, Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to recall the attention of the House to the real reason of the existing rule of law as to this inquiry into a man's religious belief, as it is falsely called. Gentlemen seem to regard it as an independent and arbitrary rule, established for no other purpose than to exclude atheists

An atheist is

There is another

from the witness-stand. This is wholly false. not excluded simply because he is an atheist. most material and massy link in the chain which shuts him out. The rule of law is now, and has been for centuries, that no testimony shall be received in courts of justice except under the sanction of an oath; a rule which has never been relaxed except in favor of the Quakers, whose conscientious scruples about oaths have stood the test of two centuries of trial, and, during a part of the time, of the sharpest persecution. But an atheist cannot take an oath, and that, not because he has any conscientious scruples about swearing, but because he has no God to swear by. There is nothing in his breast upon which the obligations of an oath can take hold. Its terms are wholly unmeaning to him—its sanctions wholly unbinding upon him. He cannot, therefore, as he must, if he give it at all, give testimony under oath. It is the oath, then, and not his religious belief, which excludes him.

And here, Sir, I advance this proposition, that so long as oaths are administered in our courts, so long it is essential to the ends of justice that this right of inquiry should be maintained; and so long it is the religious duty of society to maintain it. Why, what is an oath, and in what consists the taking of an oath? Is it the mere stepping upon a stand to be seen of men, the assumption of an arbitrary attitude, and the repetition of a formula of words to render one liable to the pains and penalties of perjury? I fear it is too often considered so. I have often regretted the hasty and careless manner in which oaths are administered and taken. I have often desired that some change might be made, which would assign to the taker something more than a mere raising of the hand and a bending of the head. But what is an oath? It is a religious obligation, and, in taking it, a man is supposed to lift himself above the level of men, and to speak, as it were, in the presence of God, to raise, not only his hand, but his heart, to heaven, to invoke the attestation of God to truth, and to imprecate his vengeance upon falsehood.

Seriously considered, Sir, there is no more awful act performed by man on earth than this. No form of prayer or of

sacrament surpasses it in solemnity. And is it not the right, then, is it not the imperative duty, of society, to take good heed that it be not lightly or vainly administered? Nay, does not society make its officers, (and through them, itself,) not only witnesses, but parties, to the most shocking mockery, to the most profane blasphemy, by suffering oaths to be administered to those who deny the existence of the God in whose name they are couched?

Gentlemen will tell me, that the second section of this bill will provide against such an event. But wide as that section reaches, extraordinary and extravagant as its provisions are, allowing every man to affirm who may object to being sworn, whether his objection arise from conscience or from caprice, whether from a weak superstition, or from a wicked design to escape the imprecation of Divine wrath upon a deliberate and premeditated perjury, — it does not go far enough to prevent the profanation to which I have referred.

Suppose, Sir, a bold and barefaced infidel, an open and notorious infidel, to be summoned as a witness in our courts, and that, declining to avail himself of the privilege of the second section of this bill, and resisting all inquiry into his religious belief under the first, he should insist, for the mere purpose of ridiculing religion and mocking God, or for any other reason you choose, on having the oath administered to him,― is there any thing in this bill, or out of it, if the bill passes, to hinder him from doing so? Nothing. And if gentlemen tell me that I suppose an extreme case, I reply that it is an extreme case in more senses of the word than one, and that the very possibility of its occurrence ought to be scrupulously guarded against. And to this end, until all oaths are abolished, the right of inquiry which this bill proposes to do away, must be preserved.

Again, Sir, I maintain that the right of inquiry is essential to the ends of justice. Why are oaths administered at all? Is it not because they are believed to have peculiar efficacy to elicit and extort truth from those who might otherwise speak falsely? And is it not a mere imposition on both judges and jury, and a most gross injustice to those interested in any suit, to introduce testimony under the form of an oath, without giving them the