New-York tribune., 1901-04-29
THE INTOLERANCE OF TOLERANCE.

Nine. Roland's dying apostrophe to Liberty
might we'll be adapted, with the change of
word or two to not little of the so-called toler-
ance of the day in matters of religious belief
There is, of course. true tolerance generous and
brave, which respects where it does not agree,
and which is as ready to grant freedom to others
as 1T is to demand it for itself. Such spirit we
may well believe and certainly must hope. is
more and more prevailing among mankind But
there is not lacking, either a spirit which from
behind mask of stridulously proclaimed toler-
ance rails most intolerantly at all who do not in
every detail precisely coincide with that which
1T calls tolerance but which. in fact seems more
akin to either bigotry or mental and spiritual
nabbiness; or perhaps to both. for there is a big
otry Of fabbiness well as of firmness
a striking case in point has just been pre-
sented in some public post-mortem comments
upon Justin Dewey Fulton, who for many years
was one OF the most conspicuous figures in one
OF the foremost Christian denominations in this
country. number of solemn lay sermons
clerical ones. too, perhaps-have been preached
with a single feature, almost a single incident.
Of his complex career for their text striving to
pillory him as type Of old time intolerance.
and, in terms far more intOIerant than any
which they have ventured to attribute to him.
rejoicing that the intolerance of those days is
past and that such a career as his was would
now be impossible. We know not which to won
der at the more, the intolerance of the so-called
tolerance which has thus no liberation for sin
cere disagreement with its own notions or the
peryerson of historic truth which is involved
in such presentation of the case
Granting that DR.. Fulton had extreme views
on certain religious matters and went to ex-
remes In presenting and advocating them, it
cannot he maintained that he owed to that fact
his prominence in the Church On the contrary
such features OF his career were ra ther handi-
cap to the success which his scholarship his
eloquence and his intellectual force would in
any case have been sure to win for him. Grant
ing that he opposed the beliefs and practices Of
others with all the energy Of an intense and
strenuous nature, 1t is grossly unjust to forget
that toward all men, men. he invariably
manifested the utmost tenderness of heart and
abundance Of charity There was no f1ercer and
at the same time no more generous fighter The
man who at the outset Of his career was not
afraid to sacrifice worldly profits and to incur
peril OF actual martyrdom rather than to con-
done the sin Of human slavery, who In his fu-
neral sermon over Elmer Ellsworth foresounded
the policy which the nation was glad to adopt
year or two later, who for full generation was
tower OF strength to the cause of temperance
reform, and whose work in one city after an
other WAS sgnalized in the building up of great
strons, working Christian churches was not the
man 70 be decried and reviled intolerantly not
even in the name of tolerance
Dut IL was our purpose not chiefly to eulooize
VI. ui'on. winch is unnecessary, but rather to
point OUT the strange inconsistency of being in
Tolerant IN the name of tolerance, of manifest