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not occupied more than three minutes; and, on reaching the House, into which he well knew the way, having been frequently under the gallery, he looked about the lobby for the honourable members whom he expected would be waiting to receive him; when, being unable to recognise them there, he walked boldly into the house, bowed to the Speaker, and took his seat.

The confident air with which he entered, would alone have been sufficient to disarm all suspicion of his being a stranger, if even any such suspicion had been excited; but as it occurred just after a general election, when a host of new members are almost invariably returned, the door-keepers thought of course that he was one of them.

Nor did the members themselves for a moment suspect that he was not: in fact, the idea of his being an intruder, never occurred to any one of them. They all thought that of course he was one of the new members; and, being interested in his appearance, inquired anxiously of each other who he was.

Sylvester, however, took no notice of them; that is to say, individually: he viewed them only in the mass: his attention was fixed upon those who addressed the house; the arguments adduced by some of whom he rose to answer, but being unable to catch the Speaker's eye, others followed, and he resumed his seat.

The question before the house on that occasion, had reference to the practice of baking the dinners of the poor on the Sunday, and Sylvester felt disgusted with the wild fanaticism by which the speeches of some of the opponents of that practice were characterised. It was hence that he rose to reply to them, and was sorry when he found himself compelled to resume his seat. He was still, however, on the qui vive; and as the honourable member who was then speaking, was the most malignant, bigoted, superficial, self-sufficient, persecuting, narrow-minded puritan of them all, the very moment he had finished, Sylvester, fired with indignation, started up, caught the eye of the Speaker, and commenced.

He was, however, for a moment compelled to pause; for the house, as a matter of courtesy, cheered him; and when the cheering had subsided into the most profound silence, he felt himself much more calm and said,

"Sir,—In every society, and in every circle, in every house, institution, or assembly, in which religious enthusiasm has been tolerated, it has engendered dissensions, bitterness, heart-burnings, and hatred—severed friendships, subdued affections, destroyed brotherly love and sympathy—converted harmony into discord, happiness into misery, and filled the mind in which sweet peace reigned, with fearful apprehensions. (Cheers.) Sir, religious enthusiasm, as it is called, but which I call fanaticism, is as distinct from religion itself, as intolerance is from charity, as humility is from pride, as meekness is from arrogance, or as christian forbearance is from cruel persecution. Its essence is tyranny: its history has been written in blood. Ignorance is one of its chief characteristics, and even where the germs of genius have struck root in the soil, it has sprung up, and waved and bloomed but to be blasted. Its presumption shocks heaven. It would impiously wrest the sword of Justice, and the sceptre of Mercy, from the hands of the Eternal God.