But, in the midst of our delight, we cannot refrain
from asking for some explanation of so extraordinary a change.
from asking for some explanation of so extraordinary a change.
Macaulay
I well remember
the strong expression which was then used by my honourable friend, the
Member for the University of Oxford. We must, he said, make allowance
for the expansive force of Protestantism. A few nights ago a noble lord
for whom I, in common with the whole House, feel the greatest respect,
the Member for Dorsetshire (Lord Ashley. ), spoke of the missionary
character of the Church of Ireland. Now, Sir, if such language had been
held at the Council Board of Queen Elizabeth when the constitution of
this Church was first debated there, there would have been no cause for
wonder. Sir William Cecil or Sir Nicholas Bacon might very naturally
have said, "There are few Protestants now in Ireland, it is true. But
when we consider how rapidly the Protestant theology has spread, when
we remember that it is little more than forty years since Martin Luther
began to preach against indulgences, and when we see that one half of
Europe is now emancipated from the old superstition, we may reasonably
expect that the Irish will soon follow the example of the other nations
which have embraced the doctrines of the Reformation. " Cecil, I say,
and his colleagues might naturally entertain this expectation, and might
without absurdity make preparations for an event which they regarded
as in the highest degree probable. But we, who have seen this system in
full operation from the year 1560 to the year 1845, ought to have been
taught better, unless indeed we are past all teaching. Two hundred and
eighty-five years has this Church been at work. What could have been
done for it in the way of authority, privileges, endowments, which has
not been done? Did any other set of bishops and priests in the world
ever receive so much for doing so little? Nay, did any other set of
bishops and priests in the world ever receive half as much for doing
twice as much? And what have we to show for all this lavish expenditure?
What but the most zealous Roman Catholic population on the face of the
earth? Where you were one hundred years ago, where you were two hundred
years ago, there you are still, not victorious over the domain of the
old faith, but painfully and with dubious success defending your own
frontier, your own English pale. Sometimes a deserter leaves you.
Sometimes a deserter steals over to you. Whether your gains or losses
of this sort be the greater I do not know; nor is it worth while to
inquire. On the great solid mass of the Roman Catholic population you
have made no impression whatever. There they are, as they were ages ago,
ten to one against the members of your Established Church. Explain this
to me. I speak to you, the zealous Protestants on the other side of the
House. Explain this to me on Protestant principles. If I were a Roman
Catholic, I could easily account for the phenomena. If I were a Roman
Catholic, I should content myself with saying that the mighty hand and
the outstretched arm had been put forth, according to the promise, in
defence of the unchangeable Church; that He who in the old time turned
into blessings the curses of Balaam, and smote the host of Sennacherib,
had signally confounded the arts of heretic statesmen. But what is
a Protestant to say? He holds that, through the whole of this long
conflict, during which ten generations of men have been born and have
died, reason and Scripture have been on the side of the Established
Clergy. Tell us then what we are to say of this strange war, in which,
reason and Scripture backed by wealth, by dignity, by the help of the
civil power, have been found no match for oppressed and destitute error?
The fuller our conviction that our doctrines are right, the fuller, if
we are rational men, must be our conviction that our tactics have been
wrong, and that we have been encumbering the cause which we meant to
aid.
Observe, it is not only the comparative number of Roman Catholics
and Protestants that may justly furnish us with matter for serious
reflection. The quality as well as the quantity of Irish Romanism
deserves to be considered. Is there any other country inhabited by a
mixed population of Catholics and Protestants, any other country in
which Protestant doctrines have long been freely promulgated from the
press and from the pulpit, where the Roman Catholics spirit is so strong
as in Ireland? I believe not. The Belgians are generally considered as
very stubborn and zealous Roman Catholics. But I do not believe that
either in stubbornness or in zeal they equal the Irish. And this is
the fruit of three centuries of Protestant archbishops, bishops,
archdeacons, deans, and rectors. And yet where is the wonder? Is this
a miracle that we should stand aghast at it? Not at all. It is a result
which human prudence ought to have long ago foreseen and long ago
averted. It is the natural succession of effect to cause. If you do not
understand it, it is because you do not understand what the nature and
operation of a church is. There are parts of the machinery of Government
which may be just as efficient when they are hated as when they are
loved. An army, a navy, a preventive service, a police force, may do
their work whether the public feeling be with them or against them.
Whether we dislike the corn laws or not, your custom houses and your
coast guard keep out foreign corn. The multitude at Manchester was not
the less effectually dispersed by the yeomanry, because the interference
of the yeomanry excited the bitterest indignation. There the object was
to produce a material effect; the material means were sufficient; and
nothing more was required. But a Church exists for moral ends. A Church
exists to be loved, to be reverenced, to be heard with docility,
to reign in the understandings and hearts of men. A Church which is
abhorred is useless or worse than useless; and to quarter a hostile
Church on a conquered people, as you would quarter a soldiery, is
therefore the most absurd of mistakes. This mistake our ancestors
committed. They posted a Church in Ireland just as they posted garrisons
in Ireland. The garrisons did their work. They were disliked. But that
mattered not. They had their forts and their arms; and they kept down
the aboriginal race. But the Church did not do its work. For to that
work the love and confidence of the people were essential.
I may remark in passing that, even under more favourable circumstances
a parochial priesthood is not a good engine for the purpose of making
proselytes. The Church of Rome, whatever we may think of her ends, has
shown no want of sagacity in the choice of means; and she knows this
well. When she makes a great aggressive movement,--and many such
movements she has made with signal success,--she employs, not her
parochial clergy, but a very different machinery. The business of her
parish priests is to defend and govern what has been won. It is by
the religious orders, and especially by the Jesuits, that the great
acquisitions have been made. In Ireland your parochial clergy lay under
two great disadvantages. They were endowed, and they were hated; so
richly endowed that few among them cared to turn missionaries; so
bitterly hated that those few had but little success. They long
contented themselves with receiving the emoluments arising from their
benefices, and neglected those means to which, in other parts of Europe,
Protestantism had owed its victory. It is well known that of all the
instruments employed by the Reformers of Germany, of England, and of
Scotland, for the purpose of moving the public mind, the most powerful
was the Bible translated into the vernacular tongues. In Ireland the
Protestant Church had been established near half a century before the
New Testament was printed in Erse. The whole Bible was not printed
in Erse till this Church had existed more than one hundred and twenty
years. Nor did the publication at last take place under the patronage
of the lazy and wealthy hierarchy. The expense was defrayed by a layman,
the illustrious Robert Boyle. So things went on century after century.
Swift, more than a hundred years ago, described the prelates of his
country as men gorged with wealth and sunk in indolence, whose chief
business was to bow and job at the Castle. The only spiritual function,
he says, which they performed was ordination; and, when he saw what
persons they ordained, he doubted whether it would not be better that
they should neglect that function as they neglected every other. Those,
Sir, are now living who can well remember how the revenues of
the richest see in Ireland were squandered on the shores of the
Mediterranean by a bishop, whose epistles, very different compositions
from the epistles of Saint Peter and Saint John, may be found in the
correspondence of Lady Hamilton. Such abuses as these called forth
no complaint, no reprimand. And all this time the true pastors of the
people, meanly fed and meanly clothed, frowned upon by the law,
exposed to the insults of every petty squire who gloried in the name
of Protestant, were to be found in miserable cabins, amidst filth, and
famine, and contagion, instructing the young, consoling the miserable,
holding up the crucifix before the eyes of the dying. Is it strange
that, in such circumstances, the Roman Catholic religion should have
been constantly becoming dearer and dearer to an ardent and sensitive
people, and that your Established Church should have been constantly
sinking lower and lower in their estimation? I do not of course hold
the living clergy of the Irish Church answerable for the faults of
their predecessors. God forbid! To do so would be the most flagitious
injustice. I know that a salutary change has taken place. I have no
reason to doubt that in learning and regularity of life the Protestant
clergy of Ireland are on a level with the clergy of England. But in the
way of making proselytes they do as little as those who preceded them.
An enmity of three hundred years separates the nation from those who
should be its teachers. In short, it is plain that the mind of Ireland
has taken its ply, and is not to be bent in a different direction, or,
at all events, is not to be so bent by your present machinery.
Well, then, this Church is inefficient as a missionary Church. But there
is yet another end which, in the opinion of some eminent men, a Church
is meant to serve. That end has been often in the minds of practical
politicians. But the first speculative politician who distinctly pointed
it out was Mr Hume. Mr Hume, as might have been expected from his known
opinions, treated the question merely as it related to the temporal
happiness of mankind; and, perhaps, it may be doubted whether he took
quite a just view of the manner in which even the temporal happiness of
mankind is affected by the restraints and consolations of religion. He
reasoned thus:--It is dangerous to the peace of society that the public
mind should be violently excited on religious subjects. If you adopt the
voluntary system, the public mind will always be so excited. For every
preacher, knowing that his bread depends on his popularity, seasons his
doctrine high, and practises every art for the purpose of obtaining an
ascendency over his hearers. But when the Government pays the minister
of religion, he has no pressing motive to inflame the zeal of his
congregation. He will probably go through his duties in a somewhat
perfunctory manner. His power will not be very formidable; and, such
as it is, it will be employed in support of that order of things under
which he finds himself so comfortable. Now, Sir, it is not necessary to
inquire whether Mr Hume's doctrine be sound or unsound. For, sound or
unsound, it furnishes no ground on which you can rest the defence of
the institution which we are now considering. It is evident that by
establishing in Ireland the Church of the minority in connection with
the State, you have produced, in the very highest degree, all those
evils which Mr Hume considered as inseparable from the voluntary system.
You may go all over the world without finding another country where
religious differences take a form so dangerous to the peace of society;
where the common people are so much under the influence of their
priests; or where the priests who teach the common people are so
completely estranged from the civil Government.
And now, Sir, I will sum up what I have said. For what end does the
Church of Ireland exist? Is that end the instruction and solace of the
great body of the people? You must admit that the Church of Ireland has
not attained that end. Is the end which you have in view the conversion
of the great body of the people from the Roman Catholic religion to a
purer form of Christianity? You must admit that the Church of Ireland
has not attained that end. Or do you propose to yourselves the end
contemplated by Mr Hume, the peace and security of civil society? You
must admit that the Church of Ireland has not attained that end. In
the name of common sense, then, tell us what good end this Church has
attained; or suffer us to conclude, as I am forced to conclude, that it
is emphatically a bad institution.
It does not, I know, necessarily follow that, because an institution
is bad, it is therefore to be immediately destroyed. Sometimes a bad
institution takes a strong hold on the hearts of mankind, intertwines
its roots with the very foundations of society, and is not to be removed
without serious peril to order, law, and property. For example, I hold
polygamy to be one of the most pernicious practises that exist in the
world. But if the Legislative Council of India were to pass an Act
prohibiting polygamy, I should think that they were out of their senses.
Such a measure would bring down the vast fabric of our Indian Empire
with one crash. But is there any similar reason for dealing tenderly
with the Established Church of Ireland? That Church, Sir, is not one
of those bad institutions which ought to be spared because they are
popular, and because their fall would injure good institutions. It is,
on the contrary, so odious, and its vicinage so much endangers valuable
parts of our polity, that, even if it were in itself a good institution,
there would be strong reasons for giving it up.
The honourable gentleman who spoke last told us that we cannot touch
this Church without endangering the Legislative Union. Sir, I have given
my best attention to this important point; and I have arrived at a very
different conclusion. The question to be determined is this:--What is
the best way of preserving political union between countries in which
different religions prevail? With respect to this question we have,
I think, all the light which history can give us. There is no sort of
experiment described by Lord Bacon which we have not tried. Inductive
philosophy is of no value if we cannot trust to the lessons derived from
the experience of more than two hundred years. England has long been
closely connected with two countries less powerful than herself,
and differing from herself in religion. The Scottish people are
Presbyterians; the Irish people are Roman Catholics. We determined to
force the Anglican system on both countries. In both countries great
discontent was the result. At length Scotland rebelled. Then Ireland
rebelled. The Scotch and Irish rebellions, taking place at a time when
the public mind of England was greatly and justly excited, produced the
Great Rebellion here, and the downfall of the Monarchy, of the Church,
and of the Aristocracy. After the Restoration we again tried the old
system. During twenty-eight years we persisted in the attempt to
force Prelacy on the Scotch; and the consequence was, during those
twenty-eight years Scotland exhibited a frightful spectacle of misery
and depravity. The history of that period is made up of oppression and
resistance, of insurrections, barbarous punishments, and assassinations.
One day a crowd of zealous rustics stand desperately on their defence,
and repel the dragoons. Next day the dragoons scatter and hew down the
flying peasantry. One day the kneebones of a wretched Covenanter are
beaten flat in that accursed boot. Next day the Lord Primate is dragged
out of his carriage by a band of raving fanatics, and, while screaming
for mercy, is butchered at the feet of his own daughter. So things went
on, till at last we remembered that institutions are made for men,
and not men for institutions. A wise Government desisted from the vain
attempt to maintain an Episcopal Establishment in a Presbyterian nation.
From that moment the connection between England and Scotland became
every year closer and closer. There were still, it is true, many causes
of animosity. There was an old antipathy between the nations, the
effect of many blows given and received on both sides. All the greatest
calamities that had befallen Scotland had been inflicted by England.
The proudest events in Scottish history were victories obtained over
England. Yet all angry feelings died rapidly away. The union of the
nations became complete. The oldest man living does not remember to have
heard any demagogue breathe a wish for separation. Do you believe that
this would have happened if England had, after the Revolution, persisted
in attempting to force the surplice and the Prayer Book on the Scotch?
I tell you that, if you had adhered to the mad scheme of having a
religious union with Scotland, you never would have had a cordial
political union with her. At this very day you would have had monster
meetings on the north of the Tweed, and another Conciliation Hall, and
another repeal button, with the motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit. " In
fact, England never would have become the great power that she is. For
Scotland would have been, not an addition to the effective strength of
the Empire, but a deduction from it. As often as there was a war with
France or Spain, there would have been an insurrection in Scotland. Our
country would have sunk into a kingdom of the second class. One such
Church as that about which we are now debating is a serious encumbrance
to the greatest empire. Two such Churches no empire could bear. You
continued to govern Ireland during many generations as you had governed
Scotland in the days of Lauderdale and Dundee. And see the result.
Ireland has remained, indeed, a part of your Empire. But you know her
to be a source of weakness rather than of strength. Her misery is a
reproach to you. Her discontent doubles the dangers of war. Can you,
with such facts before you, doubt about the course which you ought to
take? Imagine a physician with two patients, both afflicted with the
same disease. He applies the same sharp remedies to both. Both become
worse and worse with the same inflammatory symptoms. Then he changes
his treatment of one case, and gives soothing medicines. The sufferer
revives, grows better day by day, and is at length restored to perfect
health. The other patient is still subjected to the old treatment, and
becomes constantly more and more disordered. How would a physician act
in such a case? And are not the principles of experimental philosophy
the same in politics as in medicine?
Therefore, Sir, I am fully prepared to take strong measures with regard
to the Established Church of Ireland. It is not necessary for me to say
precisely how far I would go. I am aware that it may be necessary,
in this as in other cases, to consent to a compromise. But the more
complete the reform which may be proposed, provided always that vested
rights be, as I am sure they will be, held strictly sacred, the more
cordially shall I support it.
That some reform is at hand I cannot doubt. In a very short time we
shall see the evils which I have described mitigated, if not entirely
removed. A Liberal Administration would make this concession to Ireland
from a sense of justice. A Conservative Administration will make it from
a sense of danger. The right honourable Baronet has given the Irish a
lesson which will bear fruit. It is a lesson which rulers ought to be
slow to teach; for it is one which nations are but too apt to learn.
We have repeatedly been told by acts--we are now told almost in express
words--that agitation and intimidation are the means which ought to be
employed by those who wish for redress of grievances from the party now
in power. Such indeed has too long been the policy of England towards
Ireland; but it was surely never before avowed with such indiscreet
frankness. Every epoch which is remembered with pleasure on the other
side of St George's Channel coincides with some epoch which we here
consider as disastrous and perilous. To the American war and the
volunteers the Irish Parliament owed its independence. To the French
revolutionary war the Irish Roman Catholics owed the elective franchise.
It was in vain that all the great orators and statesmen of two
generations exerted themselves to remove the Roman Catholic
disabilities, Burke, Fox, Pitt, Windham, Grenville, Grey, Plunkett,
Wellesley, Grattan, Canning, Wilberforce. Argument and expostulation
were fruitless. At length pressure of a stronger kind was boldly and
skilfully applied; and soon all difficulties gave way. The Catholic
Association, the Clare election, the dread of civil war, produced the
Emancipation Act. Again, the cry of No Popery was raised. That cry was
successful. A faction which had reviled in the bitterest terms the mild
administration of Whig Viceroys, and which was pledged to the wholesale
disfranchisement of the Roman Catholics, rose to power. One leading
member of that faction had drawn forth loud cheers by declaiming against
the minions of Popery. Another had designated six millions of Irish
Catholics as aliens. A third had publicly declared his conviction, that
a time was at hand when all Protestants of every persuasion would find
it necessary to combine firmly against the encroachments of Romanism.
From such men we expected nothing but oppression and intolerance. We are
agreeably disappointed to find that a series of conciliatory bills is
brought before us.
But, in the midst of our delight, we cannot refrain
from asking for some explanation of so extraordinary a change. We are
told in reply, that the monster meetings of 1843 were very formidable,
and that our relations with America are in a very unsatisfactory state.
The public opinion of Ireland is to be consulted, the religion of
Ireland is to be treated with respect, not because equity and humanity
plainly enjoin that course; for equity and humanity enjoined that
course as plainly when you were calumniating Lord Normanby, and hurrying
forward your Registration Bill; but because Mr O'Connell and Mr Polk
have between them made you very uneasy. Sir, it is with shame, with
sorrow, and, I will add, with dismay, that I listen to such language.
I have hitherto disapproved of the monster meetings of 1843. I have
disapproved of the way in which Mr O'Connell and some other Irish
representatives have seceded from this House. I should not have chosen
to apply to those gentlemen the precise words which were used on a
former occasion by the honourable and learned Member for Bath. But I
agreed with him in substance. I thought it highly to the honour of my
right honourable friend the Member for Dungarvon, and of my honourable
friends the Members for Kildare, for Roscommon, and for the city of
Waterford, that they had the moral courage to attend the service of this
House, and to give us the very valuable assistance which they are, in
various ways, so well qualified to afford. But what am I to say now? How
can I any longer deny that the place where an Irish gentleman may best
serve his country is Conciliation Hall? How can I expect that any Irish
Roman Catholic can be very sorry to learn that our foreign relations are
in an alarming state, or can rejoice to hear that all danger of war has
blown over? I appeal to the Conservative Members of this House. I ask
them whither we are hastening? I ask them what is to be the end of a
policy of which it is the principle to give nothing to justice,
and everything to fear? We have been accused of truckling to Irish
agitators. But I defy you to show us that we ever made or are now making
to Ireland a single concession which was not in strict conformity with
our known principles. You may therefore trust us, when we tell you
that there is a point where we will stop. Our language to the Irish is
this:--"You ask for emancipation: it was agreeable to our principles
that you should have it; and we assisted you to obtain it. You wished
for a municipal system, as popular as that which exists in England: we
thought your wish reasonable, and did all in our power to gratify it.
This grant to Maynooth is, in our opinion, proper; and we will do our
best to obtain it for you, though it should cost us our popularity and
our seats in Parliament. The Established Church in your island, as now
constituted, is a grievance of which you justly complain. We will strive
to redress that grievance. The Repeal of the Union we regard as fatal to
the empire: and we never will consent to it; never, though the country
should be surrounded by dangers as great as those which threatened her
when her American colonies, and France, and Spain, and Holland, were
leagued against her, and when the armed neutrality of the Baltic
disputed her maritime rights; never, though another Bonaparte should
pitch his camp in sight of Dover Castle; never, till all has been staked
and lost; never, till the four quarters of the world have been convulsed
by the last struggle of the great English people for their place
among the nations. " This, Sir, is the true policy. When you give, give
frankly. When you withhold, withhold resolutely. Then what you give is
received with gratitude; and, as for what you withhold, men, seeing that
to wrest it from you is no safe or easy enterprise, cease to hope
for it, and, in time, cease to wish for it. But there is a way of so
withholding as merely to excite desire, and of so giving as merely to
excite contempt; and that way the present ministry has discovered. Is it
possible for me to doubt that in a few months the same machinery which
sixteen years ago extorted from the men now in power the Emancipation
Act, and which has now extorted from them the bill before us, will again
be put in motion? Who shall say what will be the next sacrifice? For my
own part I firmly believe that, if the present Ministers remain in power
five years longer, and if we should have,--which God avert! --a war with
France or America, the Established Church of Ireland will be given
up. The right honourable Baronet will come down to make a proposition
conceived in the very spirit of the Motions which have repeatedly been
made by my honourable friend the Member for Sheffield. He will again
be deserted by his followers; he will again be dragged through his
difficulties by his opponents. Some honest Lord of the Treasury may
determine to quit his office rather than belie all the professions of a
life. But there will be little difficulty in finding a successor ready
to change all his opinions at twelve hours' notice. I may perhaps, while
cordially supporting the bill, again venture to say something about
consistency, and about the importance of maintaining a high standard
of political morality. The right honourable Baronet will again tell me,
that he is anxious only for the success of his measure, and that he does
not choose to reply to taunts. And the right honourable gentleman the
Chancellor of the Exchequer will produce Hansard, will read to the House
my speech of this night, and will most logically argue that I ought not
to reproach the Ministers with their inconsistency, seeing that I had,
from my knowledge of their temper and principles, predicted to a tittle
the nature and extent of that inconsistency.
Sir, I have thought it my duty to brand with strong terms of
reprehension the practice of conceding, in time of public danger, what
is obstinately withheld in time of public tranquillity. I am prepared,
and have long been prepared, to grant much, very much, to Ireland. But
if the Repeal Association were to dissolve itself to-morrow, and if the
next steamer were to bring news that all our differences with the United
States were adjusted in the most honourable and friendly manner, I would
grant to Ireland neither more nor less than I would grant if we were on
the eve of a rebellion like that of 1798; if war were raging all along
the Canadian frontier; and if thirty French sail of the line were
confronting our fleet in St George's Channel. I give my vote from my
heart and soul for the amendment of my honourable friend. He calls on
us to make to Ireland a concession, which ought in justice to have been
made long ago, and which may be made with grace and dignity even now. I
well know that you will refuse to make it now. I know as well that you
will make it hereafter. You will make it as every concession to Ireland
has been made. You will make it when its effect will be, not to appease,
but to stimulate agitation. You will make it when it will be regarded,
not as a great act of national justice, but as a confession of national
weakness. You will make it in such a way, and at such a time, that there
will be but too much reason to doubt whether more mischief has been done
by your long refusal, or by your tardy and enforced compliance.
*****
THEOLOGICAL TESTS IN THE SCOTCH UNIVERSITIES. (JULY 9, 1845) A SPEECH
DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 9TH OF JULY 1845.
On the first of May, 1845, Mr Rutherford, Member for Leith, obtained
leave to bring in a bill to regulate admission to the Secular Chairs
in the Universities of Scotland. On the morning of the sixth of May the
bill was read a first time, and remained two months on the table of the
House. At length the second reading was fixed for the ninth of July. Mr
Rutherfurd was unable to attend on that day: and it was necessary that
one of his friends should supply his place. Accordingly, as soon as the
Order of the Day had been read, the following Speech was made.
On a division the bill was rejected by 116 votes to 108. But, in the
state in which parties then were, this defeat was generally considered
as a victory.
Mr Speaker,--I have been requested by my honourable and learned friend,
the Member for Leith, to act as his substitute on this occasion. I am
truly sorry that any substitute should be necessary. I am truly sorry
that he is not among us to take charge of the bill which he not long ago
introduced with one of the most forcible and luminous speeches that I
ever had the pleasure of hearing. His audience was small; but the few
who formed that audience cannot have forgotten the effect which his
arguments and his eloquence produced. The Ministers had come down to
resist his motion: but their courage failed them: they hesitated: they
conferred together: at last they consented that he should have leave
to bring in his bill. Such, indeed, was the language which they held on
that and on a subsequent occasion, that both my honourable and learned
friend and myself gave them more credit than they deserved. We really
believed that they had resolved to offer no opposition to a law which it
was quite evident that they perceived to be just and beneficial. But
we have been disappointed. It has been notified to us that the whole
influence of the Government is to be exerted against our bill. In such
discouraging circumstances it is that I rise to move the second reading.
Yet, Sir, I do not altogether despair of success. When I consider what
strong, what irresistible reasons we have to urge, I can hardly think
it possible that the mandate of the most powerful administration can
prevail against them. Nay, I should consider victory, not merely
as probable, but as certain, if I did not know how imperfect is the
information which English gentlemen generally possess concerning Scotch
questions. It is because I know this that I think it my duty to depart
from the ordinary practice, and, instead of simply moving the second
reading, to explain at some length the principles on which this bill has
been framed. I earnestly entreat those English Members who were not so
fortunate as to hear the speech of my honourable and learned friend, the
Member for Leith to favour me with their attention. They will, I think,
admit, that I have a right to be heard with indulgence. I have been sent
to this house by a great city which was once a capital, the abode of a
Sovereign, the place where the Estates of a realm held their sittings.
For the general good of the empire, Edinburgh descended from that high
eminence. But, ceasing to be a political metropolis, she became an
intellectual metropolis. For the loss of a Court, of a Privy Council, of
a Parliament, she found compensation in the prosperity and splendour of
an University renowned to the farthest ends of the earth as a school of
physical and moral science. This noble and beneficent institution is now
threatened with ruin by the folly of the Government, and by the violence
of an ecclesiastical faction which is bent on persecution without having
the miserable excuse of fanaticism. Nor is it only the University of
Edinburgh that is in danger. In pleading for that University, I plead
for all the great academical institutions of Scotland. The fate of all
depends on the event of this debate; and, in the name of all, I demand
the attention of every man who loves either learning or religious
liberty.
The first question which we have to consider is, whether the principles
of the bill be sound. I believe that they are sound; and I am quite
confident that nobody who sits on the Treasury Bench will venture to
pronounce them unsound. It does not lie in the mouths of the Ministers
to say that literary instruction and scientific instruction are
inseparably connected with religious instruction. It is not for them to
rail against Godless Colleges. It is not for them to talk with horror of
the danger of suffering young men to listen to the lectures of an Arian
professor of Botany or of a Popish professor of Chemistry. They are
themselves at this moment setting up in Ireland a system exactly
resembling the system which we wish to set up in Scotland. Only a few
hours have elapsed since they were themselves labouring to prove that,
in a country in which a large proportion of those who require a liberal
education are dissenters from the Established Church, it is desirable
that there should be schools without theological tests. The right
honourable Baronet at the head of the Government proposes that in the
new colleges which he is establishing at Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and
Galway, the professorships shall be open to men of every creed: and
he has strenuously defended that part of his plan against attacks from
opposite quarters, against the attacks of zealous members of the Church
of England, and of zealous members of the Church of Rome. Only the day
before yesterday the honourable Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir
Thomas Acland. ) ventured to suggest a test as unobjectionable as a test
could well be. He would merely have required the professors to declare
their general belief in the divine authority of the Old and New
Testaments. But even this amendment the First Lord of the Treasury
resisted, and I think quite rightly. He told us that it was quite
unnecessary to institute an inquisition into the religious opinions of
people whose business was merely to teach secular knowledge, and that it
was absurd to imagine that any man of learning would disgrace and ruin
himself by preaching infidelity from the Greek chair or the Mathematical
chair.
Some members of this House certainly held very different language: but
their arguments made as little impression on Her Majesty's Ministers as
on me. We were told with the utmost earnestness that secular knowledge,
unaccompanied by a sound religious faith, and unsanctified by religious
feeling, was not only useless, but positively noxious, a curse to the
possessor, a curse to society. I feel the greatest personal kindness and
respect for some gentlemen who hold this language. But they must pardon
me if I say that the proposition which they have so confidently laid
down, however well it may sound in pious ears while it is expressed in
general terms, to be too monstrous, too ludicrous, for grave refutation.
Is it seriously meant that, if the Captain of an Indiaman is a Socinian,
it would be better for himself, his crew, and his passengers, that he
should not know how to use his quadrant and his chronometers? Is it
seriously meant that, if a druggist is a Swedenborgian, it would
be better for himself and his customers that he should not know the
difference between Epsom salts and oxalic acid? A hundred millions of
the Queen's Asiatic subjects are Mahometans and Pagans. Is it seriously
meant that it is desirable that they should be as ignorant as the
aboriginal inhabitants of New South Wales, that they should have no
alphabet, that they should have no arithmetic, that they should not know
how to build a bridge, how to sink a well, how to irrigate a field? If
it be true that secular knowledge, unsanctified by true religion, is
a positive evil, all these consequences follow. Yet surely they are
consequences from which every sane mind must recoil. It is a great evil,
no doubt, that a man should be a heretic or an atheist. But I am quite
at a loss to understand how this evil is mitigated by his not knowing
that the earth moves round the sun, that by the help of a lever, a small
power will lift a great weight, that Virginia is a republic, or that
Paris is the capital of France.
On these grounds, Sir, I have cordially supported the Irish Colleges
Bill. But the principle of the Irish Colleges and the principle of the
bill which I hold in my hand are exactly the same: and the House and the
country have a right to know why the authors of the former bill are the
opponents of the latter bill. One distinction there is, I admit, between
Ireland and Scotland. It is true that in Scotland there is no clamour
against the Union with England. It is true that in Scotland no demagogue
can obtain applause and riches by slandering and reviling the English
people. It is true that in Scotland there is no traitor who would dare
to say that he regards the enemies of the state as his allies. In every
extremity the Scottish nation will be found faithful to the common cause
of the empire. But Her Majesty's Ministers will hardly I think, venture
to say that this is their reason for refusing to Scotland the boon which
they propose to confer on Ireland. And yet, if this be not their reason,
what reason can we find? Observe how strictly analogous the cases are.
You give it as a reason for establishing in Ireland colleges without
tests that the Established Church of Ireland is the Church of the
minority. Unhappily it may well be doubted whether the Established
Church of Scotland, too, be not now, thanks to your policy, the Church
of the minority. It is true that the members of the Established Church
of Scotland are about a half of the whole population of Scotland; and
that the members of the Established Church of Ireland are not much more
than a tenth of the whole population of Ireland. But the question now
before us does not concern the whole population. It concerns only the
class which requires academical education: and I do not hesitate to say
that, in the class which requires academical education, in the class for
the sake of which universities exist, the proportion of persons who
do not belong to the Established Church is as great in Scotland as in
Ireland. You tell us that sectarian education in Ireland is an evil. Is
it less an evil in Scotland? You tell us that it is desirable that the
Protestant and the Roman Catholic should study together at Cork. Is it
less desirable that the son of an elder of the Established Church
and the son of an elder of the Free Church should study together at
Edinburgh? You tell us that it is not reasonable to require from a
Professor of Astronomy or Surgery in Connaught a declaration that
he believes in the Gospels. On what ground, then, can you think it
reasonable to require from every Professor in Scotland a declaration
that he approves of the Presbyterian form of church government? I defy
you, with all your ingenuity, to find one argument, one rhetorical
topic, against our bill which may not be used with equal effect against
your own Irish Colleges Bill.
Is there any peculiarity in the academical system of Scotland which
makes these tests necessary? Certainly not. The academical system of
Scotland has its peculiarities; but they are peculiarities which are not
in harmony with these tests, peculiarities which jar with these tests.
It is an error to imagine that, by passing this bill, we shall establish
a precedent which will lead to a change in the constitution of the
Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Whether such a change be or be not
desirable is a question which must be decided on grounds quite distinct
from those on which we rest our case. I entreat English gentlemen not to
be misled by the word University. That word means two different things
on the two different sides of the Tweed. The academical authorities at
Cambridge and Oxford stand in a parental relation to the student. They
undertake, not merely to instruct him in philology, geometry, natural
philosophy, but to form his religious opinions, and to watch over his
morals. He is to be bred a Churchman. At Cambridge, he cannot graduate,
at Oxford, I believe, he cannot matriculate, without declaring himself
a Churchman. The College is a large family. An undergraduate is lodged
either within the gates, or in some private house licensed and regulated
by the academical authorities. He is required to attend public worship
according to the forms of the Church of England several times every
week. It is the duty of one officer to note the absence of young men
from divine service, of another to note their absence from the public
table, of another to report those who return home at unseasonably late
hours. An academical police parade the streets at night to seize upon
any unlucky reveller who may be found drunk or in bad company. There are
punishments of various degrees for irregularities of conduct. Sometimes
the offender has to learn a chapter of the Greek Testament; sometimes
he is confined to his college; sometimes he is publicly reprimanded:
for grave offences he is rusticated or expelled. Now, Sir, whether this
system be good or bad, efficient or inefficient, I will not now inquire.
This is evident; that religious tests are perfectly in harmony with such
a system. Christ Church and King's College undertake to instruct every
young man who goes to them in the doctrines of the Church of England,
and to see that he regularly attends the worship of the Church of
England. Whether this ought to be so, I repeat, I will not now inquire:
but, while it is so, nothing can be more reasonable than to require from
the rulers of Christ Church and King's College some declaration that
they are themselves members of the Church of England.
The character of the Scotch universities is altogether different. There
you have no functionaries resembling the Vice-Chancellors and Proctors,
the Heads of Houses, Tutors and Deans, whom I used to cap at Cambridge.
There is no chapel; there is no academical authority entitled to ask a
young man whether he goes to the parish church or the Quaker meeting, to
synagogue or to mass. With his moral conduct the university has nothing
to do. The Principal and the whole Academical Senate cannot put any
restraint, or inflict any punishment, on a lad whom they may see lying
dead drunk in the High Street of Edinburgh. In truth, a student at a
Scotch university is in a situation closely resembling that of a medical
student in London. There are great numbers of youths in London who
attend St George's Hospital, or St Bartholomew's Hospital. One of these
youths may also go to Albermarle Street to hear Mr Faraday lecture on
chemistry, or to Willis's rooms to hear Mr Carlyle lecture on German
literature. On the Sunday he goes perhaps to church, perhaps to the
Roman Catholic chapel, perhaps to the Tabernacle, perhaps nowhere. None
of the gentlemen whose lectures he has attended during the week has the
smallest right to tell him where he shall worship, or to punish him for
gambling in hells, or tippling in cider cellars. Surely we must all feel
that it would be the height of absurdity to require Mr Faraday and Mr
Carlyle to subscribe a confession of faith before they lecture; and
in what does their situation differ from the situation of the Scotch
professor.
In the peculiar character of the Scotch universities, therefore, I find
a strong reason for the passing of this bill. I find a reason stronger
still when I look at the terms of the engagements which exist between
the English and Scotch nations.
Some gentlemen, I see, think that I am venturing on dangerous ground. We
have been told, in confident tones, that, if we pass this bill, we shall
commit a gross breach of public faith, we shall violate the Treaty
of Union, and the Act of Security. With equal confidence, and with
confidence much better grounded, I affirm that the Treaty of Union and
the Act of Security not only do not oblige us to reject this bill, but
do oblige us to pass this bill, or some bill nearly resembling this.
This proposition seems to be regarded by the Ministers as paradoxical:
but I undertake to prove it by the plainest and fairest argument. I
shall resort to no chicanery. If I did think that the safety of the
commonwealth required that we should violate the Treaty of Union,
I would violate it openly, and defend my conduct on the ground of
necessity. It may, in an extreme case, be our duty to break our
compacts. It never can be our duty to quibble them away. What I say
is that the Treaty of Union, construed, not with the subtlety of a
pettifogger, but according to the spirit, binds us to pass this bill or
some similar bill.
By the Treaty of Union it was covenanted that no person should be a
teacher or office-bearer in the Scotch Universities who should not
declare that he conformed to the worship and polity of the Established
Church of Scotland. What Church was meant by the two contracting
parties? What Church was meant, more especially, by the party to the
side of which we ought always to lean, I mean the weaker party? Surely
the Church established in 1707, when the Union took place. Is then,
the Church of Scotland at the present moment constituted, on all points
which the members of that Church think essential, exactly as it was
constituted in 1707? Most assuredly not.
Every person who knows anything of the ecclesiastical history of
Scotland knows that, ever since the Reformation, the great body of the
Presbyterians of that country have held that congregations ought to have
a share in the appointment of their ministers. This principle is laid
down most distinctly in the First Book of Discipline, drawn up by John
Knox. It is laid down, though not quite so strongly, in the Second Book
of Discipline, drawn up by Andrew Melville. And I beg gentlemen, English
gentlemen, to observe that in Scotland this is not regarded as a matter
of mere expediency. All staunch Presbyterians think that the flock is
entitled, jure divino, to a voice in the appointment of the pastor, and
that to force a pastor on a parish to which he is unacceptable is a sin
as much forbidden by the Word of God as idolatry or perjury. I am quite
sure that I do not exaggerate when I say that the highest of our
high churchmen at Oxford cannot attach more importance to episcopal
government and episcopal ordination than many thousands of Scotchmen,
shrewd men, respectable men, men who fear God and honour the Queen,
attach to this right of the people.
When, at the time of the Revolution, the Presbyterian worship and
discipline were established in Scotland, the question of patronage was
settled by a compromise, which was far indeed from satisfying men of
extreme opinions, but which was generally accepted. An Act, passed
at Edinburgh, in 1690, transferred what we should call in England the
advowsons from the old patrons to parochial councils, composed of the
elders and the Protestant landowners. This system, however imperfect
it might appear to such rigid Covenanters as Davie Deans and Gifted
Gilfillan, worked satisfactorily; and the Scotch nation seems to have
been contented with its ecclesiastical polity when the Treaty of Union
was concluded. By that treaty the ecclesiastical polity of Scotland was
declared to be unalterable. Nothing, therefore, can be more clear
than that the Parliament of Great Britain was bound by the most sacred
obligations not to revive those rights of patronage which the Parliament
of Scotland had abolished.
But, Sir, the Union had not lasted five years when our ancestors were
guilty of a great violation of public faith. The history of that great
fault and of its consequences is full of interest and instruction. The
wrong was committed hastily, and with contumelious levity. The offenders
were doubtless far from foreseeing that their offence would be visited
on the third and fourth generation; that we should be paying in 1845 the
penalty of what they did in 1712.
In 1712, Sir, the Whigs, who were the chief authors of the Union, had
been driven from power. The prosecution of Sacheverell had made them
odious to the nation. The general election of 1710 had gone against
them. Tory statesmen were in office. Tory squires formed more than
five-sixths of this House.
the strong expression which was then used by my honourable friend, the
Member for the University of Oxford. We must, he said, make allowance
for the expansive force of Protestantism. A few nights ago a noble lord
for whom I, in common with the whole House, feel the greatest respect,
the Member for Dorsetshire (Lord Ashley. ), spoke of the missionary
character of the Church of Ireland. Now, Sir, if such language had been
held at the Council Board of Queen Elizabeth when the constitution of
this Church was first debated there, there would have been no cause for
wonder. Sir William Cecil or Sir Nicholas Bacon might very naturally
have said, "There are few Protestants now in Ireland, it is true. But
when we consider how rapidly the Protestant theology has spread, when
we remember that it is little more than forty years since Martin Luther
began to preach against indulgences, and when we see that one half of
Europe is now emancipated from the old superstition, we may reasonably
expect that the Irish will soon follow the example of the other nations
which have embraced the doctrines of the Reformation. " Cecil, I say,
and his colleagues might naturally entertain this expectation, and might
without absurdity make preparations for an event which they regarded
as in the highest degree probable. But we, who have seen this system in
full operation from the year 1560 to the year 1845, ought to have been
taught better, unless indeed we are past all teaching. Two hundred and
eighty-five years has this Church been at work. What could have been
done for it in the way of authority, privileges, endowments, which has
not been done? Did any other set of bishops and priests in the world
ever receive so much for doing so little? Nay, did any other set of
bishops and priests in the world ever receive half as much for doing
twice as much? And what have we to show for all this lavish expenditure?
What but the most zealous Roman Catholic population on the face of the
earth? Where you were one hundred years ago, where you were two hundred
years ago, there you are still, not victorious over the domain of the
old faith, but painfully and with dubious success defending your own
frontier, your own English pale. Sometimes a deserter leaves you.
Sometimes a deserter steals over to you. Whether your gains or losses
of this sort be the greater I do not know; nor is it worth while to
inquire. On the great solid mass of the Roman Catholic population you
have made no impression whatever. There they are, as they were ages ago,
ten to one against the members of your Established Church. Explain this
to me. I speak to you, the zealous Protestants on the other side of the
House. Explain this to me on Protestant principles. If I were a Roman
Catholic, I could easily account for the phenomena. If I were a Roman
Catholic, I should content myself with saying that the mighty hand and
the outstretched arm had been put forth, according to the promise, in
defence of the unchangeable Church; that He who in the old time turned
into blessings the curses of Balaam, and smote the host of Sennacherib,
had signally confounded the arts of heretic statesmen. But what is
a Protestant to say? He holds that, through the whole of this long
conflict, during which ten generations of men have been born and have
died, reason and Scripture have been on the side of the Established
Clergy. Tell us then what we are to say of this strange war, in which,
reason and Scripture backed by wealth, by dignity, by the help of the
civil power, have been found no match for oppressed and destitute error?
The fuller our conviction that our doctrines are right, the fuller, if
we are rational men, must be our conviction that our tactics have been
wrong, and that we have been encumbering the cause which we meant to
aid.
Observe, it is not only the comparative number of Roman Catholics
and Protestants that may justly furnish us with matter for serious
reflection. The quality as well as the quantity of Irish Romanism
deserves to be considered. Is there any other country inhabited by a
mixed population of Catholics and Protestants, any other country in
which Protestant doctrines have long been freely promulgated from the
press and from the pulpit, where the Roman Catholics spirit is so strong
as in Ireland? I believe not. The Belgians are generally considered as
very stubborn and zealous Roman Catholics. But I do not believe that
either in stubbornness or in zeal they equal the Irish. And this is
the fruit of three centuries of Protestant archbishops, bishops,
archdeacons, deans, and rectors. And yet where is the wonder? Is this
a miracle that we should stand aghast at it? Not at all. It is a result
which human prudence ought to have long ago foreseen and long ago
averted. It is the natural succession of effect to cause. If you do not
understand it, it is because you do not understand what the nature and
operation of a church is. There are parts of the machinery of Government
which may be just as efficient when they are hated as when they are
loved. An army, a navy, a preventive service, a police force, may do
their work whether the public feeling be with them or against them.
Whether we dislike the corn laws or not, your custom houses and your
coast guard keep out foreign corn. The multitude at Manchester was not
the less effectually dispersed by the yeomanry, because the interference
of the yeomanry excited the bitterest indignation. There the object was
to produce a material effect; the material means were sufficient; and
nothing more was required. But a Church exists for moral ends. A Church
exists to be loved, to be reverenced, to be heard with docility,
to reign in the understandings and hearts of men. A Church which is
abhorred is useless or worse than useless; and to quarter a hostile
Church on a conquered people, as you would quarter a soldiery, is
therefore the most absurd of mistakes. This mistake our ancestors
committed. They posted a Church in Ireland just as they posted garrisons
in Ireland. The garrisons did their work. They were disliked. But that
mattered not. They had their forts and their arms; and they kept down
the aboriginal race. But the Church did not do its work. For to that
work the love and confidence of the people were essential.
I may remark in passing that, even under more favourable circumstances
a parochial priesthood is not a good engine for the purpose of making
proselytes. The Church of Rome, whatever we may think of her ends, has
shown no want of sagacity in the choice of means; and she knows this
well. When she makes a great aggressive movement,--and many such
movements she has made with signal success,--she employs, not her
parochial clergy, but a very different machinery. The business of her
parish priests is to defend and govern what has been won. It is by
the religious orders, and especially by the Jesuits, that the great
acquisitions have been made. In Ireland your parochial clergy lay under
two great disadvantages. They were endowed, and they were hated; so
richly endowed that few among them cared to turn missionaries; so
bitterly hated that those few had but little success. They long
contented themselves with receiving the emoluments arising from their
benefices, and neglected those means to which, in other parts of Europe,
Protestantism had owed its victory. It is well known that of all the
instruments employed by the Reformers of Germany, of England, and of
Scotland, for the purpose of moving the public mind, the most powerful
was the Bible translated into the vernacular tongues. In Ireland the
Protestant Church had been established near half a century before the
New Testament was printed in Erse. The whole Bible was not printed
in Erse till this Church had existed more than one hundred and twenty
years. Nor did the publication at last take place under the patronage
of the lazy and wealthy hierarchy. The expense was defrayed by a layman,
the illustrious Robert Boyle. So things went on century after century.
Swift, more than a hundred years ago, described the prelates of his
country as men gorged with wealth and sunk in indolence, whose chief
business was to bow and job at the Castle. The only spiritual function,
he says, which they performed was ordination; and, when he saw what
persons they ordained, he doubted whether it would not be better that
they should neglect that function as they neglected every other. Those,
Sir, are now living who can well remember how the revenues of
the richest see in Ireland were squandered on the shores of the
Mediterranean by a bishop, whose epistles, very different compositions
from the epistles of Saint Peter and Saint John, may be found in the
correspondence of Lady Hamilton. Such abuses as these called forth
no complaint, no reprimand. And all this time the true pastors of the
people, meanly fed and meanly clothed, frowned upon by the law,
exposed to the insults of every petty squire who gloried in the name
of Protestant, were to be found in miserable cabins, amidst filth, and
famine, and contagion, instructing the young, consoling the miserable,
holding up the crucifix before the eyes of the dying. Is it strange
that, in such circumstances, the Roman Catholic religion should have
been constantly becoming dearer and dearer to an ardent and sensitive
people, and that your Established Church should have been constantly
sinking lower and lower in their estimation? I do not of course hold
the living clergy of the Irish Church answerable for the faults of
their predecessors. God forbid! To do so would be the most flagitious
injustice. I know that a salutary change has taken place. I have no
reason to doubt that in learning and regularity of life the Protestant
clergy of Ireland are on a level with the clergy of England. But in the
way of making proselytes they do as little as those who preceded them.
An enmity of three hundred years separates the nation from those who
should be its teachers. In short, it is plain that the mind of Ireland
has taken its ply, and is not to be bent in a different direction, or,
at all events, is not to be so bent by your present machinery.
Well, then, this Church is inefficient as a missionary Church. But there
is yet another end which, in the opinion of some eminent men, a Church
is meant to serve. That end has been often in the minds of practical
politicians. But the first speculative politician who distinctly pointed
it out was Mr Hume. Mr Hume, as might have been expected from his known
opinions, treated the question merely as it related to the temporal
happiness of mankind; and, perhaps, it may be doubted whether he took
quite a just view of the manner in which even the temporal happiness of
mankind is affected by the restraints and consolations of religion. He
reasoned thus:--It is dangerous to the peace of society that the public
mind should be violently excited on religious subjects. If you adopt the
voluntary system, the public mind will always be so excited. For every
preacher, knowing that his bread depends on his popularity, seasons his
doctrine high, and practises every art for the purpose of obtaining an
ascendency over his hearers. But when the Government pays the minister
of religion, he has no pressing motive to inflame the zeal of his
congregation. He will probably go through his duties in a somewhat
perfunctory manner. His power will not be very formidable; and, such
as it is, it will be employed in support of that order of things under
which he finds himself so comfortable. Now, Sir, it is not necessary to
inquire whether Mr Hume's doctrine be sound or unsound. For, sound or
unsound, it furnishes no ground on which you can rest the defence of
the institution which we are now considering. It is evident that by
establishing in Ireland the Church of the minority in connection with
the State, you have produced, in the very highest degree, all those
evils which Mr Hume considered as inseparable from the voluntary system.
You may go all over the world without finding another country where
religious differences take a form so dangerous to the peace of society;
where the common people are so much under the influence of their
priests; or where the priests who teach the common people are so
completely estranged from the civil Government.
And now, Sir, I will sum up what I have said. For what end does the
Church of Ireland exist? Is that end the instruction and solace of the
great body of the people? You must admit that the Church of Ireland has
not attained that end. Is the end which you have in view the conversion
of the great body of the people from the Roman Catholic religion to a
purer form of Christianity? You must admit that the Church of Ireland
has not attained that end. Or do you propose to yourselves the end
contemplated by Mr Hume, the peace and security of civil society? You
must admit that the Church of Ireland has not attained that end. In
the name of common sense, then, tell us what good end this Church has
attained; or suffer us to conclude, as I am forced to conclude, that it
is emphatically a bad institution.
It does not, I know, necessarily follow that, because an institution
is bad, it is therefore to be immediately destroyed. Sometimes a bad
institution takes a strong hold on the hearts of mankind, intertwines
its roots with the very foundations of society, and is not to be removed
without serious peril to order, law, and property. For example, I hold
polygamy to be one of the most pernicious practises that exist in the
world. But if the Legislative Council of India were to pass an Act
prohibiting polygamy, I should think that they were out of their senses.
Such a measure would bring down the vast fabric of our Indian Empire
with one crash. But is there any similar reason for dealing tenderly
with the Established Church of Ireland? That Church, Sir, is not one
of those bad institutions which ought to be spared because they are
popular, and because their fall would injure good institutions. It is,
on the contrary, so odious, and its vicinage so much endangers valuable
parts of our polity, that, even if it were in itself a good institution,
there would be strong reasons for giving it up.
The honourable gentleman who spoke last told us that we cannot touch
this Church without endangering the Legislative Union. Sir, I have given
my best attention to this important point; and I have arrived at a very
different conclusion. The question to be determined is this:--What is
the best way of preserving political union between countries in which
different religions prevail? With respect to this question we have,
I think, all the light which history can give us. There is no sort of
experiment described by Lord Bacon which we have not tried. Inductive
philosophy is of no value if we cannot trust to the lessons derived from
the experience of more than two hundred years. England has long been
closely connected with two countries less powerful than herself,
and differing from herself in religion. The Scottish people are
Presbyterians; the Irish people are Roman Catholics. We determined to
force the Anglican system on both countries. In both countries great
discontent was the result. At length Scotland rebelled. Then Ireland
rebelled. The Scotch and Irish rebellions, taking place at a time when
the public mind of England was greatly and justly excited, produced the
Great Rebellion here, and the downfall of the Monarchy, of the Church,
and of the Aristocracy. After the Restoration we again tried the old
system. During twenty-eight years we persisted in the attempt to
force Prelacy on the Scotch; and the consequence was, during those
twenty-eight years Scotland exhibited a frightful spectacle of misery
and depravity. The history of that period is made up of oppression and
resistance, of insurrections, barbarous punishments, and assassinations.
One day a crowd of zealous rustics stand desperately on their defence,
and repel the dragoons. Next day the dragoons scatter and hew down the
flying peasantry. One day the kneebones of a wretched Covenanter are
beaten flat in that accursed boot. Next day the Lord Primate is dragged
out of his carriage by a band of raving fanatics, and, while screaming
for mercy, is butchered at the feet of his own daughter. So things went
on, till at last we remembered that institutions are made for men,
and not men for institutions. A wise Government desisted from the vain
attempt to maintain an Episcopal Establishment in a Presbyterian nation.
From that moment the connection between England and Scotland became
every year closer and closer. There were still, it is true, many causes
of animosity. There was an old antipathy between the nations, the
effect of many blows given and received on both sides. All the greatest
calamities that had befallen Scotland had been inflicted by England.
The proudest events in Scottish history were victories obtained over
England. Yet all angry feelings died rapidly away. The union of the
nations became complete. The oldest man living does not remember to have
heard any demagogue breathe a wish for separation. Do you believe that
this would have happened if England had, after the Revolution, persisted
in attempting to force the surplice and the Prayer Book on the Scotch?
I tell you that, if you had adhered to the mad scheme of having a
religious union with Scotland, you never would have had a cordial
political union with her. At this very day you would have had monster
meetings on the north of the Tweed, and another Conciliation Hall, and
another repeal button, with the motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit. " In
fact, England never would have become the great power that she is. For
Scotland would have been, not an addition to the effective strength of
the Empire, but a deduction from it. As often as there was a war with
France or Spain, there would have been an insurrection in Scotland. Our
country would have sunk into a kingdom of the second class. One such
Church as that about which we are now debating is a serious encumbrance
to the greatest empire. Two such Churches no empire could bear. You
continued to govern Ireland during many generations as you had governed
Scotland in the days of Lauderdale and Dundee. And see the result.
Ireland has remained, indeed, a part of your Empire. But you know her
to be a source of weakness rather than of strength. Her misery is a
reproach to you. Her discontent doubles the dangers of war. Can you,
with such facts before you, doubt about the course which you ought to
take? Imagine a physician with two patients, both afflicted with the
same disease. He applies the same sharp remedies to both. Both become
worse and worse with the same inflammatory symptoms. Then he changes
his treatment of one case, and gives soothing medicines. The sufferer
revives, grows better day by day, and is at length restored to perfect
health. The other patient is still subjected to the old treatment, and
becomes constantly more and more disordered. How would a physician act
in such a case? And are not the principles of experimental philosophy
the same in politics as in medicine?
Therefore, Sir, I am fully prepared to take strong measures with regard
to the Established Church of Ireland. It is not necessary for me to say
precisely how far I would go. I am aware that it may be necessary,
in this as in other cases, to consent to a compromise. But the more
complete the reform which may be proposed, provided always that vested
rights be, as I am sure they will be, held strictly sacred, the more
cordially shall I support it.
That some reform is at hand I cannot doubt. In a very short time we
shall see the evils which I have described mitigated, if not entirely
removed. A Liberal Administration would make this concession to Ireland
from a sense of justice. A Conservative Administration will make it from
a sense of danger. The right honourable Baronet has given the Irish a
lesson which will bear fruit. It is a lesson which rulers ought to be
slow to teach; for it is one which nations are but too apt to learn.
We have repeatedly been told by acts--we are now told almost in express
words--that agitation and intimidation are the means which ought to be
employed by those who wish for redress of grievances from the party now
in power. Such indeed has too long been the policy of England towards
Ireland; but it was surely never before avowed with such indiscreet
frankness. Every epoch which is remembered with pleasure on the other
side of St George's Channel coincides with some epoch which we here
consider as disastrous and perilous. To the American war and the
volunteers the Irish Parliament owed its independence. To the French
revolutionary war the Irish Roman Catholics owed the elective franchise.
It was in vain that all the great orators and statesmen of two
generations exerted themselves to remove the Roman Catholic
disabilities, Burke, Fox, Pitt, Windham, Grenville, Grey, Plunkett,
Wellesley, Grattan, Canning, Wilberforce. Argument and expostulation
were fruitless. At length pressure of a stronger kind was boldly and
skilfully applied; and soon all difficulties gave way. The Catholic
Association, the Clare election, the dread of civil war, produced the
Emancipation Act. Again, the cry of No Popery was raised. That cry was
successful. A faction which had reviled in the bitterest terms the mild
administration of Whig Viceroys, and which was pledged to the wholesale
disfranchisement of the Roman Catholics, rose to power. One leading
member of that faction had drawn forth loud cheers by declaiming against
the minions of Popery. Another had designated six millions of Irish
Catholics as aliens. A third had publicly declared his conviction, that
a time was at hand when all Protestants of every persuasion would find
it necessary to combine firmly against the encroachments of Romanism.
From such men we expected nothing but oppression and intolerance. We are
agreeably disappointed to find that a series of conciliatory bills is
brought before us.
But, in the midst of our delight, we cannot refrain
from asking for some explanation of so extraordinary a change. We are
told in reply, that the monster meetings of 1843 were very formidable,
and that our relations with America are in a very unsatisfactory state.
The public opinion of Ireland is to be consulted, the religion of
Ireland is to be treated with respect, not because equity and humanity
plainly enjoin that course; for equity and humanity enjoined that
course as plainly when you were calumniating Lord Normanby, and hurrying
forward your Registration Bill; but because Mr O'Connell and Mr Polk
have between them made you very uneasy. Sir, it is with shame, with
sorrow, and, I will add, with dismay, that I listen to such language.
I have hitherto disapproved of the monster meetings of 1843. I have
disapproved of the way in which Mr O'Connell and some other Irish
representatives have seceded from this House. I should not have chosen
to apply to those gentlemen the precise words which were used on a
former occasion by the honourable and learned Member for Bath. But I
agreed with him in substance. I thought it highly to the honour of my
right honourable friend the Member for Dungarvon, and of my honourable
friends the Members for Kildare, for Roscommon, and for the city of
Waterford, that they had the moral courage to attend the service of this
House, and to give us the very valuable assistance which they are, in
various ways, so well qualified to afford. But what am I to say now? How
can I any longer deny that the place where an Irish gentleman may best
serve his country is Conciliation Hall? How can I expect that any Irish
Roman Catholic can be very sorry to learn that our foreign relations are
in an alarming state, or can rejoice to hear that all danger of war has
blown over? I appeal to the Conservative Members of this House. I ask
them whither we are hastening? I ask them what is to be the end of a
policy of which it is the principle to give nothing to justice,
and everything to fear? We have been accused of truckling to Irish
agitators. But I defy you to show us that we ever made or are now making
to Ireland a single concession which was not in strict conformity with
our known principles. You may therefore trust us, when we tell you
that there is a point where we will stop. Our language to the Irish is
this:--"You ask for emancipation: it was agreeable to our principles
that you should have it; and we assisted you to obtain it. You wished
for a municipal system, as popular as that which exists in England: we
thought your wish reasonable, and did all in our power to gratify it.
This grant to Maynooth is, in our opinion, proper; and we will do our
best to obtain it for you, though it should cost us our popularity and
our seats in Parliament. The Established Church in your island, as now
constituted, is a grievance of which you justly complain. We will strive
to redress that grievance. The Repeal of the Union we regard as fatal to
the empire: and we never will consent to it; never, though the country
should be surrounded by dangers as great as those which threatened her
when her American colonies, and France, and Spain, and Holland, were
leagued against her, and when the armed neutrality of the Baltic
disputed her maritime rights; never, though another Bonaparte should
pitch his camp in sight of Dover Castle; never, till all has been staked
and lost; never, till the four quarters of the world have been convulsed
by the last struggle of the great English people for their place
among the nations. " This, Sir, is the true policy. When you give, give
frankly. When you withhold, withhold resolutely. Then what you give is
received with gratitude; and, as for what you withhold, men, seeing that
to wrest it from you is no safe or easy enterprise, cease to hope
for it, and, in time, cease to wish for it. But there is a way of so
withholding as merely to excite desire, and of so giving as merely to
excite contempt; and that way the present ministry has discovered. Is it
possible for me to doubt that in a few months the same machinery which
sixteen years ago extorted from the men now in power the Emancipation
Act, and which has now extorted from them the bill before us, will again
be put in motion? Who shall say what will be the next sacrifice? For my
own part I firmly believe that, if the present Ministers remain in power
five years longer, and if we should have,--which God avert! --a war with
France or America, the Established Church of Ireland will be given
up. The right honourable Baronet will come down to make a proposition
conceived in the very spirit of the Motions which have repeatedly been
made by my honourable friend the Member for Sheffield. He will again
be deserted by his followers; he will again be dragged through his
difficulties by his opponents. Some honest Lord of the Treasury may
determine to quit his office rather than belie all the professions of a
life. But there will be little difficulty in finding a successor ready
to change all his opinions at twelve hours' notice. I may perhaps, while
cordially supporting the bill, again venture to say something about
consistency, and about the importance of maintaining a high standard
of political morality. The right honourable Baronet will again tell me,
that he is anxious only for the success of his measure, and that he does
not choose to reply to taunts. And the right honourable gentleman the
Chancellor of the Exchequer will produce Hansard, will read to the House
my speech of this night, and will most logically argue that I ought not
to reproach the Ministers with their inconsistency, seeing that I had,
from my knowledge of their temper and principles, predicted to a tittle
the nature and extent of that inconsistency.
Sir, I have thought it my duty to brand with strong terms of
reprehension the practice of conceding, in time of public danger, what
is obstinately withheld in time of public tranquillity. I am prepared,
and have long been prepared, to grant much, very much, to Ireland. But
if the Repeal Association were to dissolve itself to-morrow, and if the
next steamer were to bring news that all our differences with the United
States were adjusted in the most honourable and friendly manner, I would
grant to Ireland neither more nor less than I would grant if we were on
the eve of a rebellion like that of 1798; if war were raging all along
the Canadian frontier; and if thirty French sail of the line were
confronting our fleet in St George's Channel. I give my vote from my
heart and soul for the amendment of my honourable friend. He calls on
us to make to Ireland a concession, which ought in justice to have been
made long ago, and which may be made with grace and dignity even now. I
well know that you will refuse to make it now. I know as well that you
will make it hereafter. You will make it as every concession to Ireland
has been made. You will make it when its effect will be, not to appease,
but to stimulate agitation. You will make it when it will be regarded,
not as a great act of national justice, but as a confession of national
weakness. You will make it in such a way, and at such a time, that there
will be but too much reason to doubt whether more mischief has been done
by your long refusal, or by your tardy and enforced compliance.
*****
THEOLOGICAL TESTS IN THE SCOTCH UNIVERSITIES. (JULY 9, 1845) A SPEECH
DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 9TH OF JULY 1845.
On the first of May, 1845, Mr Rutherford, Member for Leith, obtained
leave to bring in a bill to regulate admission to the Secular Chairs
in the Universities of Scotland. On the morning of the sixth of May the
bill was read a first time, and remained two months on the table of the
House. At length the second reading was fixed for the ninth of July. Mr
Rutherfurd was unable to attend on that day: and it was necessary that
one of his friends should supply his place. Accordingly, as soon as the
Order of the Day had been read, the following Speech was made.
On a division the bill was rejected by 116 votes to 108. But, in the
state in which parties then were, this defeat was generally considered
as a victory.
Mr Speaker,--I have been requested by my honourable and learned friend,
the Member for Leith, to act as his substitute on this occasion. I am
truly sorry that any substitute should be necessary. I am truly sorry
that he is not among us to take charge of the bill which he not long ago
introduced with one of the most forcible and luminous speeches that I
ever had the pleasure of hearing. His audience was small; but the few
who formed that audience cannot have forgotten the effect which his
arguments and his eloquence produced. The Ministers had come down to
resist his motion: but their courage failed them: they hesitated: they
conferred together: at last they consented that he should have leave
to bring in his bill. Such, indeed, was the language which they held on
that and on a subsequent occasion, that both my honourable and learned
friend and myself gave them more credit than they deserved. We really
believed that they had resolved to offer no opposition to a law which it
was quite evident that they perceived to be just and beneficial. But
we have been disappointed. It has been notified to us that the whole
influence of the Government is to be exerted against our bill. In such
discouraging circumstances it is that I rise to move the second reading.
Yet, Sir, I do not altogether despair of success. When I consider what
strong, what irresistible reasons we have to urge, I can hardly think
it possible that the mandate of the most powerful administration can
prevail against them. Nay, I should consider victory, not merely
as probable, but as certain, if I did not know how imperfect is the
information which English gentlemen generally possess concerning Scotch
questions. It is because I know this that I think it my duty to depart
from the ordinary practice, and, instead of simply moving the second
reading, to explain at some length the principles on which this bill has
been framed. I earnestly entreat those English Members who were not so
fortunate as to hear the speech of my honourable and learned friend, the
Member for Leith to favour me with their attention. They will, I think,
admit, that I have a right to be heard with indulgence. I have been sent
to this house by a great city which was once a capital, the abode of a
Sovereign, the place where the Estates of a realm held their sittings.
For the general good of the empire, Edinburgh descended from that high
eminence. But, ceasing to be a political metropolis, she became an
intellectual metropolis. For the loss of a Court, of a Privy Council, of
a Parliament, she found compensation in the prosperity and splendour of
an University renowned to the farthest ends of the earth as a school of
physical and moral science. This noble and beneficent institution is now
threatened with ruin by the folly of the Government, and by the violence
of an ecclesiastical faction which is bent on persecution without having
the miserable excuse of fanaticism. Nor is it only the University of
Edinburgh that is in danger. In pleading for that University, I plead
for all the great academical institutions of Scotland. The fate of all
depends on the event of this debate; and, in the name of all, I demand
the attention of every man who loves either learning or religious
liberty.
The first question which we have to consider is, whether the principles
of the bill be sound. I believe that they are sound; and I am quite
confident that nobody who sits on the Treasury Bench will venture to
pronounce them unsound. It does not lie in the mouths of the Ministers
to say that literary instruction and scientific instruction are
inseparably connected with religious instruction. It is not for them to
rail against Godless Colleges. It is not for them to talk with horror of
the danger of suffering young men to listen to the lectures of an Arian
professor of Botany or of a Popish professor of Chemistry. They are
themselves at this moment setting up in Ireland a system exactly
resembling the system which we wish to set up in Scotland. Only a few
hours have elapsed since they were themselves labouring to prove that,
in a country in which a large proportion of those who require a liberal
education are dissenters from the Established Church, it is desirable
that there should be schools without theological tests. The right
honourable Baronet at the head of the Government proposes that in the
new colleges which he is establishing at Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and
Galway, the professorships shall be open to men of every creed: and
he has strenuously defended that part of his plan against attacks from
opposite quarters, against the attacks of zealous members of the Church
of England, and of zealous members of the Church of Rome. Only the day
before yesterday the honourable Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir
Thomas Acland. ) ventured to suggest a test as unobjectionable as a test
could well be. He would merely have required the professors to declare
their general belief in the divine authority of the Old and New
Testaments. But even this amendment the First Lord of the Treasury
resisted, and I think quite rightly. He told us that it was quite
unnecessary to institute an inquisition into the religious opinions of
people whose business was merely to teach secular knowledge, and that it
was absurd to imagine that any man of learning would disgrace and ruin
himself by preaching infidelity from the Greek chair or the Mathematical
chair.
Some members of this House certainly held very different language: but
their arguments made as little impression on Her Majesty's Ministers as
on me. We were told with the utmost earnestness that secular knowledge,
unaccompanied by a sound religious faith, and unsanctified by religious
feeling, was not only useless, but positively noxious, a curse to the
possessor, a curse to society. I feel the greatest personal kindness and
respect for some gentlemen who hold this language. But they must pardon
me if I say that the proposition which they have so confidently laid
down, however well it may sound in pious ears while it is expressed in
general terms, to be too monstrous, too ludicrous, for grave refutation.
Is it seriously meant that, if the Captain of an Indiaman is a Socinian,
it would be better for himself, his crew, and his passengers, that he
should not know how to use his quadrant and his chronometers? Is it
seriously meant that, if a druggist is a Swedenborgian, it would
be better for himself and his customers that he should not know the
difference between Epsom salts and oxalic acid? A hundred millions of
the Queen's Asiatic subjects are Mahometans and Pagans. Is it seriously
meant that it is desirable that they should be as ignorant as the
aboriginal inhabitants of New South Wales, that they should have no
alphabet, that they should have no arithmetic, that they should not know
how to build a bridge, how to sink a well, how to irrigate a field? If
it be true that secular knowledge, unsanctified by true religion, is
a positive evil, all these consequences follow. Yet surely they are
consequences from which every sane mind must recoil. It is a great evil,
no doubt, that a man should be a heretic or an atheist. But I am quite
at a loss to understand how this evil is mitigated by his not knowing
that the earth moves round the sun, that by the help of a lever, a small
power will lift a great weight, that Virginia is a republic, or that
Paris is the capital of France.
On these grounds, Sir, I have cordially supported the Irish Colleges
Bill. But the principle of the Irish Colleges and the principle of the
bill which I hold in my hand are exactly the same: and the House and the
country have a right to know why the authors of the former bill are the
opponents of the latter bill. One distinction there is, I admit, between
Ireland and Scotland. It is true that in Scotland there is no clamour
against the Union with England. It is true that in Scotland no demagogue
can obtain applause and riches by slandering and reviling the English
people. It is true that in Scotland there is no traitor who would dare
to say that he regards the enemies of the state as his allies. In every
extremity the Scottish nation will be found faithful to the common cause
of the empire. But Her Majesty's Ministers will hardly I think, venture
to say that this is their reason for refusing to Scotland the boon which
they propose to confer on Ireland. And yet, if this be not their reason,
what reason can we find? Observe how strictly analogous the cases are.
You give it as a reason for establishing in Ireland colleges without
tests that the Established Church of Ireland is the Church of the
minority. Unhappily it may well be doubted whether the Established
Church of Scotland, too, be not now, thanks to your policy, the Church
of the minority. It is true that the members of the Established Church
of Scotland are about a half of the whole population of Scotland; and
that the members of the Established Church of Ireland are not much more
than a tenth of the whole population of Ireland. But the question now
before us does not concern the whole population. It concerns only the
class which requires academical education: and I do not hesitate to say
that, in the class which requires academical education, in the class for
the sake of which universities exist, the proportion of persons who
do not belong to the Established Church is as great in Scotland as in
Ireland. You tell us that sectarian education in Ireland is an evil. Is
it less an evil in Scotland? You tell us that it is desirable that the
Protestant and the Roman Catholic should study together at Cork. Is it
less desirable that the son of an elder of the Established Church
and the son of an elder of the Free Church should study together at
Edinburgh? You tell us that it is not reasonable to require from a
Professor of Astronomy or Surgery in Connaught a declaration that
he believes in the Gospels. On what ground, then, can you think it
reasonable to require from every Professor in Scotland a declaration
that he approves of the Presbyterian form of church government? I defy
you, with all your ingenuity, to find one argument, one rhetorical
topic, against our bill which may not be used with equal effect against
your own Irish Colleges Bill.
Is there any peculiarity in the academical system of Scotland which
makes these tests necessary? Certainly not. The academical system of
Scotland has its peculiarities; but they are peculiarities which are not
in harmony with these tests, peculiarities which jar with these tests.
It is an error to imagine that, by passing this bill, we shall establish
a precedent which will lead to a change in the constitution of the
Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Whether such a change be or be not
desirable is a question which must be decided on grounds quite distinct
from those on which we rest our case. I entreat English gentlemen not to
be misled by the word University. That word means two different things
on the two different sides of the Tweed. The academical authorities at
Cambridge and Oxford stand in a parental relation to the student. They
undertake, not merely to instruct him in philology, geometry, natural
philosophy, but to form his religious opinions, and to watch over his
morals. He is to be bred a Churchman. At Cambridge, he cannot graduate,
at Oxford, I believe, he cannot matriculate, without declaring himself
a Churchman. The College is a large family. An undergraduate is lodged
either within the gates, or in some private house licensed and regulated
by the academical authorities. He is required to attend public worship
according to the forms of the Church of England several times every
week. It is the duty of one officer to note the absence of young men
from divine service, of another to note their absence from the public
table, of another to report those who return home at unseasonably late
hours. An academical police parade the streets at night to seize upon
any unlucky reveller who may be found drunk or in bad company. There are
punishments of various degrees for irregularities of conduct. Sometimes
the offender has to learn a chapter of the Greek Testament; sometimes
he is confined to his college; sometimes he is publicly reprimanded:
for grave offences he is rusticated or expelled. Now, Sir, whether this
system be good or bad, efficient or inefficient, I will not now inquire.
This is evident; that religious tests are perfectly in harmony with such
a system. Christ Church and King's College undertake to instruct every
young man who goes to them in the doctrines of the Church of England,
and to see that he regularly attends the worship of the Church of
England. Whether this ought to be so, I repeat, I will not now inquire:
but, while it is so, nothing can be more reasonable than to require from
the rulers of Christ Church and King's College some declaration that
they are themselves members of the Church of England.
The character of the Scotch universities is altogether different. There
you have no functionaries resembling the Vice-Chancellors and Proctors,
the Heads of Houses, Tutors and Deans, whom I used to cap at Cambridge.
There is no chapel; there is no academical authority entitled to ask a
young man whether he goes to the parish church or the Quaker meeting, to
synagogue or to mass. With his moral conduct the university has nothing
to do. The Principal and the whole Academical Senate cannot put any
restraint, or inflict any punishment, on a lad whom they may see lying
dead drunk in the High Street of Edinburgh. In truth, a student at a
Scotch university is in a situation closely resembling that of a medical
student in London. There are great numbers of youths in London who
attend St George's Hospital, or St Bartholomew's Hospital. One of these
youths may also go to Albermarle Street to hear Mr Faraday lecture on
chemistry, or to Willis's rooms to hear Mr Carlyle lecture on German
literature. On the Sunday he goes perhaps to church, perhaps to the
Roman Catholic chapel, perhaps to the Tabernacle, perhaps nowhere. None
of the gentlemen whose lectures he has attended during the week has the
smallest right to tell him where he shall worship, or to punish him for
gambling in hells, or tippling in cider cellars. Surely we must all feel
that it would be the height of absurdity to require Mr Faraday and Mr
Carlyle to subscribe a confession of faith before they lecture; and
in what does their situation differ from the situation of the Scotch
professor.
In the peculiar character of the Scotch universities, therefore, I find
a strong reason for the passing of this bill. I find a reason stronger
still when I look at the terms of the engagements which exist between
the English and Scotch nations.
Some gentlemen, I see, think that I am venturing on dangerous ground. We
have been told, in confident tones, that, if we pass this bill, we shall
commit a gross breach of public faith, we shall violate the Treaty
of Union, and the Act of Security. With equal confidence, and with
confidence much better grounded, I affirm that the Treaty of Union and
the Act of Security not only do not oblige us to reject this bill, but
do oblige us to pass this bill, or some bill nearly resembling this.
This proposition seems to be regarded by the Ministers as paradoxical:
but I undertake to prove it by the plainest and fairest argument. I
shall resort to no chicanery. If I did think that the safety of the
commonwealth required that we should violate the Treaty of Union,
I would violate it openly, and defend my conduct on the ground of
necessity. It may, in an extreme case, be our duty to break our
compacts. It never can be our duty to quibble them away. What I say
is that the Treaty of Union, construed, not with the subtlety of a
pettifogger, but according to the spirit, binds us to pass this bill or
some similar bill.
By the Treaty of Union it was covenanted that no person should be a
teacher or office-bearer in the Scotch Universities who should not
declare that he conformed to the worship and polity of the Established
Church of Scotland. What Church was meant by the two contracting
parties? What Church was meant, more especially, by the party to the
side of which we ought always to lean, I mean the weaker party? Surely
the Church established in 1707, when the Union took place. Is then,
the Church of Scotland at the present moment constituted, on all points
which the members of that Church think essential, exactly as it was
constituted in 1707? Most assuredly not.
Every person who knows anything of the ecclesiastical history of
Scotland knows that, ever since the Reformation, the great body of the
Presbyterians of that country have held that congregations ought to have
a share in the appointment of their ministers. This principle is laid
down most distinctly in the First Book of Discipline, drawn up by John
Knox. It is laid down, though not quite so strongly, in the Second Book
of Discipline, drawn up by Andrew Melville. And I beg gentlemen, English
gentlemen, to observe that in Scotland this is not regarded as a matter
of mere expediency. All staunch Presbyterians think that the flock is
entitled, jure divino, to a voice in the appointment of the pastor, and
that to force a pastor on a parish to which he is unacceptable is a sin
as much forbidden by the Word of God as idolatry or perjury. I am quite
sure that I do not exaggerate when I say that the highest of our
high churchmen at Oxford cannot attach more importance to episcopal
government and episcopal ordination than many thousands of Scotchmen,
shrewd men, respectable men, men who fear God and honour the Queen,
attach to this right of the people.
When, at the time of the Revolution, the Presbyterian worship and
discipline were established in Scotland, the question of patronage was
settled by a compromise, which was far indeed from satisfying men of
extreme opinions, but which was generally accepted. An Act, passed
at Edinburgh, in 1690, transferred what we should call in England the
advowsons from the old patrons to parochial councils, composed of the
elders and the Protestant landowners. This system, however imperfect
it might appear to such rigid Covenanters as Davie Deans and Gifted
Gilfillan, worked satisfactorily; and the Scotch nation seems to have
been contented with its ecclesiastical polity when the Treaty of Union
was concluded. By that treaty the ecclesiastical polity of Scotland was
declared to be unalterable. Nothing, therefore, can be more clear
than that the Parliament of Great Britain was bound by the most sacred
obligations not to revive those rights of patronage which the Parliament
of Scotland had abolished.
But, Sir, the Union had not lasted five years when our ancestors were
guilty of a great violation of public faith. The history of that great
fault and of its consequences is full of interest and instruction. The
wrong was committed hastily, and with contumelious levity. The offenders
were doubtless far from foreseeing that their offence would be visited
on the third and fourth generation; that we should be paying in 1845 the
penalty of what they did in 1712.
In 1712, Sir, the Whigs, who were the chief authors of the Union, had
been driven from power. The prosecution of Sacheverell had made them
odious to the nation. The general election of 1710 had gone against
them. Tory statesmen were in office. Tory squires formed more than
five-sixths of this House.
