Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/81

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Dr. Stiggins:

tion? Is England Protestant and Undenominational or not? If it claims these titles, and I think it has done so in no doubtful manner, let there be an end of all this; let us not suffer the Evil Thing which we are pitching out of the school windows to come in again by the study door. It is of little use, believe me, to insist on Simple Bible Teaching at one moment, and to teach the Baptismal Figment at the next, even though this pernicious doctrine appear on the pages of an Italian Poet. As for Freedom, I suppose you do not wish for freedom to sell poisons, freedom to vend arsenic and strychnine? If we are Protestants the "Divine Comedy" should be suppressed. Is not the spirit—the immortal soul—of higher import than the perishing and transitory body? Shall we shut the public-house door, and open the leaves of this book, which reeks of Catholic Dogma from the first page to the last?

I think that the rock on which you and many others are inclined to split is a very

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