consent to cursing the Episcopalian Church, or any church, with a fixed income of five millions a year? I thought he had more Christian charity. Just imagine what such a church, if free from State control, would become.

Cecil. The thought was not in his head, and, besides, it is a very innocent thing to say, for no statesman is ever likely to say it when that question comes up for practical settlement. A corporation with five millions a year would be a danger to the State which no wise man would call into existence. This is both Lord Stanley's and Goldwin Smith's view, and they are two statesmen who may have something to do in the matter.

Cecil. Well, then, there is Mr. Morley to begin with, and we allow that it would be a libel even to imagine him to be a Whig. Sterling. And he has displaced a politician of milder type than himself. And so has McLaran at Edinburgh, Mr. Cowen at Newcastle, Mr. Holden at Knaresborough, Sir Morton Peto at Bristol, and Mr. Graham at Glasgow. I do not suppose we should call Mr. Fawcett, or John Stuart Mill, or Mr. Torrens a Whig. We have gained in numbers and in style. The best thought of the House will be expressed on the side of progress, and there are too many men of honour for such a game as was played in the last session to be played over again. My own impression is that we shall have a large Liberal house, and that Mr. Brand will not know what in the world to do with it.

Cecil. Then Palmerston will buy their support with another splendid promise.

Merton. But you forget Mr. Gladstone, and Sterling has left out the Oxford election. He is not a man to buy or to sell. Sterling. I am not so sure of that.

Merton. What? Do you suspect even Cæsar's wife, and is she too to be cast off? If you want a type of pure unselfish statesmanship, where will you get it if not in Mr. Gladstone! Is not the whole country looking to him, and has it not already given him its confidence?

Sterling. No doubt I am alone. Liberal I am, but I never trusted Mr. Gladstone, and he will have to do a great deal more than he has ever done or promised, before I can put faith in him. He is a wonderful orator; he has a mind of marvellous acuteness and subtlety; he has had splendid opportunities, and has also had the practical sagacity to make the most of them. When this is said, all is said. I am mistaken if he does not prove to be the greatest obstruction to political and ecclesiastical reform

that we have had.

Merton. But you have not read his speeches, man?

Sterling. Yes, I have, and his books and his votes. He

talked, as he does now, years ago. He is a magnificent sentimentalist. 'Tis eight years since he pronounced a power of praises on Voluntaryism in the colonies and on the wonderful results of a self-sustaining religion, and he went back from that meeting to vote for fixing church-rates on the Dissenters' necks. He now talks about a policy of "generosity" towards Dissenters. We do not want generosity from the State-no body of men is entitled to it. We want the merest justice, and I find that Mr. Gladstone has never been willing to concede us this. It is notorious that he has prevented the Government from making the church-rate question a government question, and his votes against Sir Morton Peto's and Mr. Dillwyn's bills are equally notorious. If you wish to know what Mr. Gladstone is, you should read his letter to the late Bishop of London on subscription, republished by himself not quite a year since. He there avows that his ideal church is the English church of the middle ages. I suppose we all know what that means. Had he lived then he would have been a second Becket: had he lived later he would have been a Laud, quite as pious and quite as persecuting. Religious freedom has ever yet found him her ablest opponent, and her opponent he will be to the end of his days; at least, if ambition does not overcome his conscience. By conscience he is a high churchman; that is to say, his conscience has been trained on the high church model; but his personal ambition is almost equally powerful. You see this when any one opposes him in the House of Commons. He shrinks from defeat. You will say, so do we all, and especially so should we if we were public men. But his shrinking is that of a man who feels that such defeats will keep him down the ladder both of power and fame. To fame, by the bye, he is, I think, not so susceptible, but I should be sorry to trust him with great power and a strong church party at his back.

Merton. Well; you read him differently from any man I have met, or who has met him, with one exception, and that is a Tory. I met yesterday a writer of that school who said as a Tory what you have been saying as a Dissenter. To quote his own words: "Gladstone has sold the Church; and now he will sell you."

Sterling. But I don't think he has sold the Church. I think he will sell us if we give him the opportunity, or if we trust him-which I, for one, do not. Don't be ashamed of me. I can appreciate lofty Christian character and unrivalled abilities; but neither can work through a tortuous intellect. Mephistopheles had genius and thought you will remember, and he was

unquestionably clever, but poor Faust found him none the better for that.

Cecil. I have listened to what you have said and have wondered at it, and I disagree with you entirely. If Mr. Gladstone has been what you describe, he need not be it, now that his position is changed. Does he not himself say that he is "unmuzzled"?

Sterling. But he was willing to continue to wear the muzzle. I will answer your next question. Why? Because he was ambitious of continuing member for the University of Oxford. If he really has believed in a "generous policy" towards Dissenters, he was quite willing if he had remained with the University not to say a word about it, and to go on as before without that generous policy.

Merton. Well, you must take men as you find them, and statesmen most especially, but I think your view, Sterling, is harsh and uncharitable, and I am sure events will falsify it.

Sterling. Amen! I will eat every one of my words in such

a case.

Cecil. You will have to do it certainly. You will owe your own liberty to that man if I read him rightly, and I think the Church and the State will owe him more than I should like to predict, for I can't predict quite so confidently as you can.

Merton. I suppose, Sterling, that if Mr. Gladstone were or could be Mr. Miall, you would have no doubt about him? By the bye, I know Mr. Gladstone said not long ago, that it was a disgrace to the Dissenters that Mr. Miall was not returned to Parliament. I suppose that you agree with him there? Is not that something in his favour?

Sterling. I do agree with him.

Cecil. And so do I, but the question is what Dissenters are there?

Merton. Well; we can all agree upon one point; and in answer to Cecil I say, it is a disgrace, with few exceptions, to all Dissenters everywhere. Not that every borough could return him, but there are, at least, half-a-dozen that could be named, which return more "extreme men," and where the Dissenting electors might if they chose dictate his election by an arrangement with the other party.

Sterling. I hope, now, that he will be returned-when he isnot by Dissenters, but by Churchmen, as the greatest friend the Church of England has ever had. If Churchmen could see this they would elect him speedily enough.

Cecil. And you would leave the Dissenters to clap their hands, I suppose?

Sterling. What more do they do now?

Merton. It was much the same in Cardiganshire with Mr. Richard. Wonderful people the Welsh people are for cheering and applause. No man like Henry Richard when it seemed impossible that he could be elected. No man like him when he had decided not to contest the county; but between these two acts little enough encouragement does he appear to have got!

Sterling. Well, Milton died in poverty; Defoe was always in difficulty; Doddridge's wife and family were indebted to Church people for an existence. The prophets of our own day may escape this lot, but not the common lot of all prophets.

Merton. I move that we "cut politics." We are getting bitter, and it will do us no good. With a certain exception, about which we are not agreed, we are agreed that the Election has been a good one, and that we are likely to be better treated in the new than we were in the old Parliament. We are not standing still. Reaction" is a bubble after all. I propose a toast:-Success to the Liberation party; a seat for its leader, and one beside him for the best of Welshmen!

THE

CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR,

SEPTEMBER, 1865,

HAVE WE NOT ALL ONE FATHER?

THIS question has recently been asked by one of the greatest polemical theologians of Scotland before one of the most religious and learned audiences of its cultivated capital, and has been answered in the negative. Through the generosity of Dr. Webster the Free Church of Scotland has been enriched by an institution of lectures similar to the Bampton lectureship of Oxford, and the Hulsean of Cambridge. Very appropriately it is named after William Cunningham, the late distinguished and learned principal of the Free Church College, and not less appropriately his successor in that office, Dr. Candlish, was chosen to be the first lecturer. By the conditions of the trust the lecturer is "at liberty to choose his own subject within the range of Apologetical, Doctrinal, Controversial, Exegetical, Pastoral, or Historical Theology, including what bears on missions, home and foreign, subject to the consent of the council." From this almost unlimited range Dr. Candlish selected the topic of the Divine Fatherhood, for reasons which he gives in his first lecture and in fulfilment of another of the conditions of his office, we have these lectures published in a handsome octavo volume.

Those acquainted with the former works of this author will not need to be informed that these lectures are clear, forcible, and

The Fatherhood of God. Being the First Course of the Cunningham Lectures, delivered before the New College, Edinburgh, in March, 1864. By ROBERT S. CANDLISH, D.D., Principal of New College, and Minister of Free St. George's Church, Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black.