TO THE READER.



  ArYEi frequent solicitations from friends and
strangers, in this city and State, and also in other
States, communicated privately and publicly, I have,
with unaffected hesitancy, given these pages to the
public.
  My intention was to make about half the book
consist of sketches of the advocates of religious lib-
erty in other times; but having to leave the city, on
mny return I found the letters printed off, leaving me
but forty eight pages tor the proposed sketches.
This will account for the extreme condensation in
the sixth chapter. The seventh letter was also writ-
ten after it was concluded to publish them in the
present form. The six others, first appeared in the
Louisville Morning Courier.
  Had I been in the city when the fourth letter
was printed off, I should have omitted as many of
the quotations as were from weekly Catholic news-
papers. Their editors are (at the present time at
least) considered entirely irresponsible; and it is an
old trick of Jesuitism, to try to call away attention
from the highest and authoritative sources of evi-
lence, to the irresponsibility of an unendorsed edi-
tor, or his reckless denial of what is quoted, if a sin-
gle letter or comma be misplaced. The quotation
from the Bo"ton Pilot was first seen by me in the