Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/353

 342 CURRAN. topies which at that time agitated the public mind. We select the following as peculiar for their force and beauty On the universal emancipation of all minor sects from th penal and prescriptive statute for the ascendency of the established church. " I put it to your oaths, gentlemen of the jury; do you think that a blessing of that kind, that a victory obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression, should bave a stigma cast upon it by an ignominious sentence upon mer bold and honest enough to propose the measure? T propose the redee ming of religion from the abuses of the church The reclaiming of three millions of men fron bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right t demand it? Giving, I say, in the so much censured words of tlhis paper,' giving universal emancipation. I speak i the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty com mensurate with, and inseparable from, British soil; whicl proclaims, even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets his foot on British earth, that the grouno on which he treads is holy and consecrated to the genius of universal emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced;-no matter wha complexion incompatible with freedom, an Indian or at African sun may have burnt upon him; no matter in wha disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down;- no matter with what solemnities he may have been devote on the altar of slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink togethe in the dust. His soul walks abroad in her own majesty his body swells beyond the measure of his chains tha burst from around him; and he stands redeemed, rege nerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible genius o universal emancipation Ou the liberty of the press. " What then remains? The liberty of the press only the sacred palladium, which no inluence, no power, n