Page:Toleration and other essays.djvu/277

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We Must Take Sides
253

and Roman woman will give three to each member of the other sects, even the Quakers and Jansenists. The Socinians need only embrace once, seeing that those gentlemen believe there is only one person in God; but this embrace will be equal to three when it is performed in good faith.

We know that an Atheist can live very cordially with a Jew, especially if the Jew does not charge more than eight per cent, in lending him money; but we have no hope of ever seeing a lively friendship between a Calvinist and a Lutheran. All that we require of the Calvinist is that he return the salute of the Lutheran with some affection, and do not follow the example of the Quakers, who do reverence to nobody; but the Calvinists have not their candour.

We urge the primitive folk called Quakers to marry their sons to the daughters of the Theists who are known as Socinians, as these young ladies, being nearly all the daughters of priests, are very poor. Not only will it be a very good deed before God and men, but these marriages will produce a new race, which, representing the first years of the Christian Church, will be very useful to the human race.

These preliminaries being settled, if any quarrel occur between members of two different sects, they must never choose a theologian as arbitrator, for he would infallibly eat the oyster and leave them the shells.

To maintain the established peace nothing shall be offered for sale, either by a Greek to a Turk, a Turk to a Jew, or a Roman to a Roman, except