On the other hand, if I were known to have professed a certain faith and to have abandoned it, he would acclaim that as casting off mental slavery.

This is hopelessly confusing.

If a man has ceased to hold a certain belief he deserves no credit for courage in saying so openly.

If he thinks what he once believed, or is supposed to have believed, has no vitality, surely he can have no reason for being afraid of it, and to speak of dangerous consequences from it to him, can be _for him_ at least only a bogey.

His simple denial is, then, no mark of courage.