Bishop Magee further urges that “those who say that Christianity was received in an ignorant age, are contradicted by the story of Christianity itself, for many of those who saw his miracles rejected them.” I fail to see the contradiction; clearly the Jews were an ignorant people, they had no scientific literature, no philosophy, no recorded oratory, not even a language—for the Hebrew is but that which the captives borrowed from their captors—not a trace of their ancient tongue having been preserved. The learned Bishop argues that “the desires, prejudices, and passions of men largely share in the making of their beliefs.” But surely he might have carried this farther still, and have shown—and this even apart from the case made out by Darwin, Spencer, and Wallace—that race, climate, soil, food, and mode of life, modify and change beliefs, and that such beliefs are transmissible and transmitted from parent to child in similar—though perhaps not in the same—fashion as are features and frames. And as in the case of the _physique_ the inherited nature is modified, improving or deteriorating with the mode of life of the individual, so also, but in a more varied degree, with his thought-abilities and his thoughts. But if it be true, as was so powerfully urged by the Right Reverend Christian Advocate, that men’s desires, passions, and prejudices contribute largely to the making up of their beliefs, what becomes of his Lordship’s subsequent startling declaration that a man is free to choose what he will believe, “to will his own belief?” If there are hereditary predispositions to particular lines of thought, hereditary predispositions to regard particular topics from limited stand-points, hereditary predispositions to ignore or accept unquestioningly particular propositions, I ask, Does not the acquiescence in such a doctrine fatally impeach the Bishop’s arguments? On the reference made to the “bigotry of the priest,” I desire in this lecture to say but little, for I would willingly follow the example of my Right Reverend antagonist, and entirely avoid those arguments which savour of mere personal denunciation; but it is hard to forget that during the 1800 years which, it was boasted, Christianity has endured it was the policy and practice of priestly bigotry, first in the Church of Rome, and afterwards, and not less, in the Church of England, to oppose, and without mercy to seek to crush out all efforts at Freethought. If to-day the Lord Bishop of Peterborough lifts his powerful and eloquent voice in the Cathedral nave, if to-day we are charmed with his suasive pleading and well-turned periods, we can scarcely forget that it is only since the Church has been unable to strike with the arm of the law that she has condescended to plead with the tongue.