An address to Mr. Gladstone from those clergymen of the
Church of England who are favourable to Home-rule, is to be shortly presented. The leaders in this movement are, without exception, men for whom we entertain the most cordial respect,— the Dean of Winchester (Dr. Kitchin), the Dean of Manchester (Dr. Oakley), Canon Scott Holland (of St. Paul's), the Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge (Mr. Lyttelton), and a few others. What they are all remarkable for is a certain im- pulsiveness and a great ecclesiastical courage. They are the clergymen who are always ready to embrace the popular cause, even when it is of dubious character, from love to the people and a healthy dislike to ening the Church always ranging itself on the Conservative side. We heartily sympathise with their feeling, and respect their motive. But this is a case where the law,—not only the statute law, but the moral law,—is upon one side, and the men who make light of all law upon the other ; and it seems to us that liberty is itself at stake whenever the moral law is at stake. The cause of the people is, for once, in the hands not of the party of impulie, but the party of stead- fastness. Nevertheless, we admire the enthusiasm of such men as these, even more than we lament their serious blunder.
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