municated by the Church, after which he was not only subject to civil disabilities, e.g. of bringing an action, but was also liable to imprisonment till he was reconciled to the Church.
As in this century, the less democratic and more erudite sceptics were left untouched from a motive akin to Voltaire's, when he implored his atheistic friends not to propagate their opinions before his servants, since he did not want his throat cut.[1] Richard Carlyle was nine years imprisoned for writing free-thinking books. Shelley was turned out of University College, Oxford, for proclaiming his views on atheism.[2]
The best views of the time on the necessity for persecution of non-Christians were put forward by Dr Arnold. In his Oxford "Lectures on History" he held that an ideal society will arise, in which disbelief in the Christian religion will so outrage the moral sense of the community that it may have to be put down by law. If Dr Arnold's forecast of opinion was right, so also will be his forecast of legislation. On these grounds he opposed the relief of the Jews from their disabilities, because they did not share the Christian ethics of a Christian country, and "insisted on making Biblical
