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—(applause)—to the footstool of the most high God. (Hear, hear.) I should have thought that the
DESCENDANTS OF THE PURITANS
were the last men who would have laughed at psalm-singing. (Hear, hear.) These psalm-singing men—their fathers once, I believe, showed in England what the psalm-singing men could do. (Do.) Now, I have spoken of the peculiar inconsistency that there is in Puritan Nonconformists in England, in Scotland, and in Wales treating us as they do. (Applause.) What are their leading principles? I am speaking not of their religious, but of their moral and political principles, as evinced by history. In the first place they have always posed in English history as friends of political liberty. There can be no doubt of that. I believe that the opinions of many religious and good men among the Nonconformists of England—I will mention one especially whom I have not the honour of personally knowing, but from whose writings I have derived as much instruction as from almost any other I have ever read—I mean Dr. Clifford, who is against us,—I fully believe that such men as he have been led astray by applying the analogies of English political parties to political parties in this country. Among what I may, without offence, call Celtic politicians, there is no disposition to give and take, no nice adjustment, no compromise, no giving a little to get a good deal for the welfare of the community altogether. To secure a Conservative minority, a decent minority in Ireland under the new Bill, if it ever came into force, would be a very hard thing; but this Bill, as we all know, intensifies, amplifies, increases, and swells out this difficulty into impossibility. It condescends to jerrymander, it draws mendacious maps. The political victim is taken, strapped down tightly by both his arms and both his legs, and then put on the table and a pitch plaister is clapped over his mouth. It is a sad thing to say, but he will have no access to those two extraordinary chambers, which are to stand for the Lords and Commons. In old
