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From the conversation of Philotheus, a Macedonian sectary, he had imbibed the spirit of religious toleration; and the Heretics of Rome would have assembled with impunity, if the bold and vehement censure which Pope Hilary pronounced in the church of St. Peter, had not obliged him to abjure the unpopular indulgence.
Staunton stared a little, and asked if her father was a Quaker. "God forbid, sir," said Jeanie "He is nae schismatic nor sectary, nor ever treated for sic black commodities as theirs, and that's weel kend o' him." "And what is his name, pray?" said Mr. Staunton. "David Deans, sir, the cowfeeder at Saint Leonard's Crags, near Edinburgh."
Whether or not the fellow comprehended the meaning of that uproar, of those wildly dancing figures in his front, I could never determine; but, before the woman could in any way interfere, the sectary plumped down upon his knees, and, with head bent so low that every separate hair caught the reflection of the ruddy flames, began pouring forth a petition in sturdy English, and with a volume of voice that shook the whole interior.
The Savoyard Vicar's own position to Christianity was one of reverential scepticism. "The holiness of the gospel," he said, "is an argument that speaks to my heart and to which I should even be sorry to find a good answer. Look at the books of the philosophers with all their pomp; how puny they are by the side of that! Is there here the tone of an enthusiast or an ambitious sectary?
What at first was only a political opinion is now a religious tenet; and the moderate sectary has acquired the obstinacy of a martyr, and, perhaps, the spirit of persecution.
Is the tone of this book, the tone of the enthusiast or the ambitious sectary? What gentleness and purity in his actions, what a touching grace in his teaching, how lofty are his sayings, how profoundly wise are his sermons, how ready, how discriminating, and how just are his answers! What man, what sage, can live, suffer, and die without weakness or ostentation?
"What is a Muggletonian, or a Ranter, or a Brownist, but a sectary? and thy phrase places them all, with Jack Presbyter himself, on the same footing with our learned prelates and religious clergy!
I caught the outline of her face, imprinted with horror, the lips moving as if in supplication; then I perceived something else her hands were bound! Smothering an oath, I crept back to the pile of weapons in the corner, gripped a war-club, and, returning as silently, thrust a second into the unconscious hands of Cairnes. Our eyes met, the sectary nodding grimly, his jaws set like a steel trap.
The Puritan had appropriated one of De Noyan's hats, broad of brim, and so ample of crown the high peaked head of the worthy sectary was almost lost within its capacious interior.
If he had been only an enthusiast, led away by the apocalypses on which the popular imagination fed, he would have remained an obscure sectary, inferior to those whose ideas he followed. If he had been only a puritan, a sort of Channing or "Savoyard vicar," he would undoubtedly have been unsuccessful.
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