Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/598

 594 JOHN TOLAND, ONE of the earliest and most learned of the modern Deists, was born at Inis Eogan, in the most northern peninsula of Ireland, on November 30, 1669. His parents were Catholics, and are stated to have been of a good family. He was baptized by the singular names of Janus Junius; which becoming an object of ridicule to the boys at the school of Redcastle, near Londonderry, where he received his early education, were changed by direction of the master into John, a name which he retained through the remainder of his life. In 1687, he removed to the university of Glasgow, and thence, after three years study, to that of Edinburgh, where he was admitted, in June 1690, to the degree of M.A. He had already renounced the religion of his fathers, and taken up the tenets of the Dissenters; and on his journey shortly after into England, his excellent abili ties and great acquirements recommended him to the notice of several of the most eminent of that sect, as a proper person to undertake the important functions of the ministry. For this purpose, by their advice and at their expense, he undertook a journey to Leyden, where he devoted himself for two years, with great assiduity to theological studies. On his return to England, he resided at Oxford; where, having the advantage of the public library, he undertook several learned works, and com menced his celebrated treatise, “Christianity not myste rious;” but leaving Oxford before it was finished, it did not appear till 1696, the year after his arrival in London. Its publication was immediately followed by several attacks and refutations, and it was even presented as a libel by the grand jury of Middlesex; although the peculiar opinions of the author were by no means so broadly stated therein, as in many of his later publications. Indeed, the offence which it gave was almost entirely confined to men of narrow and prejudiced minds; while those of stronger and bolder genius regarded it as the commencement of a free