The manner in which he had characterized the different religious bodies, whose conduct he had to describe, gave offence to many readers, and was afterwards matter of regret to himself. The toleration which forbids us to punish our neighbour on account of his creed, he had fully learned. That still higher toleration, which forbids us to treat our neighbour's religious creed with disrespect, he had not yet acquired. He always speaks of the extreme Independents and Presbyterians as enthusiasts. With this term, not in itself opprobrious, because, though it implies excess, it does not imply the excess of a bad quality, he, on some occasions, associates the word fanaticism, and other expressions having a like sarcastic, or at least slighting tendency. To the Roman Catholic religion he was still less respectful, generally speaking of it as "the Catholic superstition."[5:2] In his "Natural History of Religion," published in 1757, he used the same offensive expressions, and spoke of the ceremonies and essential doctrines of the church of Rome, in a tone which no sincere member of that church can encounter without painful feelings. In this respect he certainly did not act up to the character of a true philosopher, though his expressions are no doubt in harmony with the general tone of his mind. He certainly had no wish to insult any man's creed, but he never dreamed that, among his readers, there might be some who sympathized deeply with the catholic spirit of the gothic ages, or with the independent temper of the covenanters. One whose mind revolted so nervously against whatever was not stamped with the character of profound philosophy, or of brilliant intellect, could see nothing to admire in the adaptation of the catholic system to the dark ages in which it flourished; and would have little respect for such achievements as it gained in the war with barbarous minds and brutal passions.[6:1] In Scotland, the Episcopal Church was at that time barely tolerated; and many an outcry against this toleration, as one of the sins of the time, made its adherents daily fear that their freedom of conscience might be made still more narrow. For the Roman Catholics there was no toleration in the proper acceptation of the term. Had their priesthood mingled in the ordinary society of Edinburgh, and had Hume become acquainted with them as he afterwards was with the clergy of France, he would perhaps have blushed to write as he did, of the creed of learned and accomplished men. In his subsequent editions, he carefully cleansed his History of these offensive expressions, substituting in general the word "creed" or "religion," instead of superstition.