This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...us to see whether such a right can be exercised or not. The adoption of Nonconformity is the exercise of a right. It is a vindication of freedom, and it cannot involve, as our opponents would wish, the contented assumption of new fetters. Having asserted a right that belongs to him as an individual, the Nonconformist has no intention of surrendering those that belong to him in his social and his political capacities. He abandons no pre-existing rights. He abjures no civic functions. Nonconformity has held, and must continue to hold, the idea, and to teach and enforce it, that we are members of a body, and that we are bound to spend time and thought, toil and selfdenial for the common good. Nor is it necessary to give much consideration to the case of those so-called Nonconformists who decline all participation in general affairs on some manifestly hypocritical ground. The spirit in which we write forbids any attempt to deal with either the unintelligent or the unprincipled. Mere indolence, cowardice, or selfishness no doubt leads men to the neglect of palpable duties. Some expense must be incurred, some trouble taken, some ridicule endured, some opposition overcome, some sacrifice made, and hence there is "a turning back in the day of battle." Perhaps the justification of ignorance is attempted. The unwilling mind, heedless of the " things that belong to the wise," and of the words of warning for the culpably blind, will affect not to know that it could be of any use, the truth being that there is utter indifference because no immediate advantage to self would result from talcing a sbare in the work. On the ground cf personal taste, of natural temperament, or of pre-occupancy, many whose aims are far from being centred...