Every service in St. Paul's Cathedral is an outrage to the
opinions of the congregation of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of
Westminster. Every Liberal meeting is a defiance and a challenge
to the most cherished opinions of the Unionists. A law to compel
the Roman Catholics to attend service at St. Paul's, or the
Liberals to attend the meetings of the Primrose League would be
resented as an insufferable tyranny. But a law to shut up both
St. Paul's and the Westminster Cathedral; and to put down
political meetings and associations because of the offence given
by them to many worthy and excellent people, would be a far worse
tyranny, because it would kill the religious and political life
of the country outright, whereas to compel people to attend the
services and meetings of their opponents would greatly enlarge
their minds, and would actually be a good thing if it were
enforced all round. I should not object to a law to compel
everybody to read two newspapers, each violently opposed to the
other in politics; but to forbid us to read newspapers at all
would be to maim us mentally and cashier our country in the ranks
of civilization. I deny that anybody has the right to demand more
from me, over and above lawful conduct in a general sense, than
liberty to stay away from the theatre in which my plays are
represented. If he is unfortunate enough to have a religion so
petty that it can be insulted (any man is as welcome to insult my
religion, if he can, as he is to insult the universe) I claim the
right to insult it to my heart's content, if I choose, provided I
do not compel him to come and hear me.
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