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230 better known as Pelagius, and that of the Gallic Celt Voltaire, one of the founders of freedom of thought and of the forerunners of the Revolution in France; or, to come to our own day, take that of Renan, than whom no one can be said to write with wider sympathies and more fascination of frankness as regards matters of religion and theology, whatever you may think of the correctness of his views, or be found to dwell with more fondness on his Celtic origin and Breton boyhood.

These are after all, you might say, but individual cases, which is not to be denied. But I could, if time allowed, produce a larger though humbler witness from my native county of Cardigan: I allude to a small community which has been in existence there for the last century and a quarter or more. There in an agricultural tract between the rivers Aeron and Teivi, the ordinary beliefs of Trinitarian Christians have passed into those known as Unitarian. Now it is believed by the inhabitants of the country round this Black Spot, as they call it, that Unitarian theology can have no attraction for the religious mind: still that theology has deeply and firmly taken root there. The Black Spot is a quiet rural district without a town or even a village of any large size. The small farmers and farm-labourers of Llandyssul, thoughtful and intelligent men as they are, cannot in any sense be reckoned Renans or Voltaires; and the question inevitably thrusts itself upon us, why should a creed believed to have no charm for the mass of men, and views verging, if I am not mistaken, on extreme scepticism, exercise a decided sway over their minds? Let those answer who believe the Celt essentially a superstitious fanatic. Of the merits or demerits of