By our own act, or at their solicitation, we may study "sacred" writings, but at dictation, never! So long as Secularists obey the laws enacted for the common security, so long as they perform the duties of good citizens, it is nothing to Christians what opinions they hold. We neither seek their counsel nor desire their sentiments--except they concede them on terms of equality. The light by which we walk is sufficient for us; and as at the last day, of which Christians speak, we shall there have, according to their own showing, to answer for ourselves, we prefer to think for ourselves; and since they do not propose to take our responsibility, we decline to take their doctrines. Where we are to be responsible, we will be free; and no man shall dictate to us the opinions we shall hold. We shall probably know as well as any Christian how to live with freedom and to die without fear. It is in vain for Christians to tell us that Newton and Locke differed from us. What is that to us unless Newton and Locke will answer for us? The world may differ from a man, but what is the world to him, unless it will take his place at the judgment-day? Who is Paul or Apollos, or Matthew or Mark, that we should venture our eternal salvation on his word, any more than on that of a Mahomedan prophet, or a Buddhist priest? Where the danger is our own, the faith shall be our own. Secularism is not an act conceived in the spirit of pride, or vanity, or self-will, or eccentricity, or singularity, or stiff-neckedness. It is simply well-understood self-defence. If men have the right of private judgment, that right has set them free; and we own no law but reason, no limits but the truth, and have no fear but that of guilt. We may say we believe in honour, which is respecting the truth--in morality, which is acting the truth--in love, which is serving the truth--and in independence, which is defending the truth. XVIII.