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    rope , now gives the law and reigns lord paramount . Her Emperor left Paris for a year , and in that time what has he not accomplished ? The early victories of this wonderful man placed kim on a level with the greatest commanders' the world has seen : to whom

    shall we row compare him r The passage of the Alps , and the battle of Marcngo ; the battle of Austerlitz and campaign which led to it ; the battles of Jena and Friedland , with the concluding conference at Tilsit ; these are battles and subversions of kingdoms ,

    that , as long as military glory is the theme of general applause , must elevate the hero of France high above his predecessors in the same career . France formerly adored their grand tn * narque . A L . ouisXV . andaL » ouisXVI . were greeted with acclamations : what must have been those acclamations ,

    those shouts of applause , when the hero returned , after accomplishing what the ambition of Louis XIV . could never conceiye . If he is our enemy , we cannot enviously pluck from him his justly acquired laurels . The claims he has on the gratitude of France are undoubted : from the lowest state of

    confusion he has raised her to the highest pitch of glory . " But is there not something more in his exploits than the superficial observer acknowledges . This change in the state of Europe , is it not connected with events , which may call the attention of fcil mankind ?

    Without endeavouring to find the hero in ancient prophecies , as some have done , and we will not say that they have done it injudiciously ; without implicitly relying on those who assure us that he is the man on the white clouds in

    the Revelations , with a golden crown on his head , and a sharp sickle in his tiand , to reap the harvest of the earth ; without committing ourselves to declare that he is the angel of God , commissioned for high and important

    purposes , though it is to be noticed that the moral qualities of the agent , do not prohibit that epithet being applied to him : whatever he may be , we cannot doubt that through him Europe has undergone a great change : and , whatever may have been the cost of it , the

    consequences are such a * will lead the rising generation to estimate them * selves and their fellow creatures in a

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    very different manner from what they have been accustomed to do for the last 1260 years . " One circumstance demands peculiar attention * Wherever Bonaparte HAS GONE , RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE HAS FLED BEFORE HiM . Freedom of religion has been

    established by him at home , and it is made a part of the terms of peace with other nations . Poland had been torn to pieces by religious dissensions . In that country the reformation was carried far * ther by that eminent body of martyrs , commonly called Polish Brethren , than Luther and Calvin , and their adherents would acknowledge . The Polish re »

    thren hated tyranny over themselves , and they would not tyrannize over others . It is not to be wondered at that popish zeal and barbarity ~ should plot and accomplish their ruin , and that the Calvinists should rejoice at it ,

    for the Polish Brethren abominated the cruelty of Calvin , in the murder of Servetus , as much as if it had been committed by popish priests . The Polish Brethren were driven after

    suffering extreme hardships , from their country ; but their works have , enlightened all Europe . The decree of Bonaparte , by which Warsaw is erected into a Duchy , establishes completely the freedom of Religion , and the successors of the Polish Brethren may now wore hip , without fear or restraint the God of their fathers .

    " The circumstance of religious freedom springing up fromFrahce may justly astonish us . This country had been aiove all others noted for its cruelty against the Protestants . The day of St . Bartholomew and the revocation of the edict of Nantz presented scenes at which humanity shudders . France ha 9

    nobly wiped away these stigmas by thp freedom in religion which it has not only established in its own dominions ^ but has introduced into so many other countries on the continent . Spain and Portugal wili soon feel the effect of

    this disposition in onaparte ; and as the Inquisition has been for some time deprived of much of its authority , we may expect to hear that it is entirely abolished , and all ita trumpery of monkf and nuns driven away as completely as it has been done in France . The English nJtion ivtll longer retain its prer judicc s * We did not reform the caleifc-

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    Religious Liberty in France . " 303

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1807, page 503, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2384/page/51/