If we understand these words aright, our author regards with complacency the conduct of one who renounced the true faith, to embrace a religion which, in the eyes of all Catholics, is false and heretical. To his mind the act of apostasy is _a sacrifice for conscience’ sake_. This is liberality of sentiment indeed! But it is a liberality of sentiment which we cannot reconcile with the maxims of sacred Scripture. Not so did the great apostle speak of those who had “made shipwreck concerning the faith”. “Of whom”, he said, “is Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered up to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme”—I. _Tim._, i. 19. 20. And again: “And their speech spreadeth like a canker; of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have erred from the truth, saying that the resurrection is past already”—II. _Tim._, ii. 17, 18. Our readers, perhaps, will not be unwilling to know what was the effect of this training on the religious principles of Milton. His rich and vigorous mind was, indeed, a fertile soil. The seed which was sown in the spring time of youth, did not fail to grow up into a luxuriant tree, and to bring forth fruit in due season, according to its kind. In the maturity of life he constructed a system of theology which he professed to derive from Scripture alone. It is recorded by his own pen in his treatise _De Doctrina Christiana_, which, having been lost for a hundred and fifty years, has come to light within the present century. The peculiar tenets which he sets forth in this remarkable book may be briefly told. He defends the lawfulness of polygamy and divorce; he maintains that matter exists from eternity; he denies the doctrine of the Trinity; the Son is inferior to the Father, and produced in time; the Holy Ghost is inferior to the Father and the Son. An able writer has described “the result of the whole work” as “a system of theology not merely in discordance with the Church of England, but with every sect by which we are divided; an incoherent and conflicting theory, which combines Arianism, Anabaptism, Latitudinarianism, Quakerism, and we know not what to add, on account of his opinions on polygamy, but Mahometanism”.(8) These results are the ripe fruit of that early instruction in “all Scriptural lore” which Milton received, and for which Mr. Justice Keogh would seek our sympathy and approval.